THE  CHRONICLES 
OF  AMERICA  SERIES 
ALLEN  JOHNSON 
ITOR 


THE 

AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN 
EDUCATION 


EDWIN  E.  SLOSSON 


THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 


AD,KK1   /I 


mi 


TEXTBOOK   EDITION 

THE  CHRONICLES 

OF  AMERICA  SERIES 

ALLEN  JOHNSON 

EDITOR 

GERHARD  R.  LOMER 

CHARLES   W.   JEFFERYS 

ASSISTANT   EDITORS 


FRANKLIN'S  BOOK  SHOP,  1745 

From  the  painting  by  Ferris.     In  the  Ferris  Collection  of  American 
Historical  Paintings 

Copyright,  J.  L.  («.  Ferris 


THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 
IN  EDUCATION 

A   CHRONICLE  OF 

GREAT  TEACHERS 

BY  EDWIN  E.  SLOSSON 


NEW   HAVEN:   YALE   UNIVERSITY   PRESS 
TORONTO:   GLASGOW.    BROOK   &   CO. 
LONDON:   HUMPHREY   MILFORD 
OXFORD 


LA  205- 
Sc 


REPLACING 

£*<+  PSfc 

Copyright,  1921,  by  Yale  University  Press 


CONTENTS 

I.     SCHOOL      DAYS      IN      EARLY      NEW 

ENGLAND  Page      1 

II.     SCHOOLS   IN   NEW   NETHERLAND  "        22 

III.  SCHOOLS     OF     THE     MIDDLE     AND 

SOUTHERN   COLONIES  "        34 

IV.  THE   COLONIAL    COLLEGE  "        46 

V.     FRANKLIN    AND     PRACTICAL    EDU 
CATION  "        65 

VI.     JEFFERSON  AND  STATE  EDUCATION     "        78 

VII.     WASHINGTON  AND  NATIONAL  EDU 
CATION  "        94 

VIII.     SCHOOLS  OF  THE  YOUNG  REPUBLIC     "      104 

IX.     HORACE  MANN  AND  THE  AMERICAN 

SCHOOL  "      124 

X.     DE  WITT  CLINTON  AND  THE  FREE 

SCHOOL  "      141 

XI.     THE    WESTWARD    MOVEMENT  "      155 

XII.     THE     RISE    OF  THE  STATE  UNIVER 
SITY  "      168 

XIII.  CATHOLIC  EDUCATION  IN  AMERICA     "      181 

XIV.  THE     RISE     OF     TECHNICAL     EDU 

CATION  "      207 

vii 


viii  CONTENTS 

XV.     THE  MORRILL  ACT  AND  WHAT  CAME 

OF  IT  Page  221 

XVI.     WOMEN    KNOCKING    AT    THE  COL 
LEGE   DOOR  "  233 

XVII.     THE    NEW   EDUCATION  "  253 

XVIII.     THE   UNIVERSITY   OF  TODAY  "  273 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL   NOTE  "  287 

INDEX  "  291 


ILLUSTRATION 

FRANKLIN'S   BOOK  SHOP,   1745 

From  the  painting  by  Ferris.  In  the 
Ferris  Collection  of  American  Historical 
Paintings.  Copyright,  J.  L.  G.  Ferris.  Frontispiece 


THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN 
EDUCATION 


CHAPTER  I 

SCHOOL   DAYS   IN    EARLY    NEW   ENGLAND 

It  being  one  chiefe  project  of  that  ould  deluder  Sathan  to  keepe 
men  from  the  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures  ...  It  is  therefore 
ordered  that  every  township  in  this  jurisdiction,  after  the  Lord 
hath  increased  them  to  the  number  of  50  householders,  shall  ap 
point  one  within  their  towns  to  teach  all  such  children  as  shall 
resort  to  him  to  write  and  reade.  —  Massachusetts  School  Law,  1647. 

THE  origin  of  the  American  public  school  must  be 
sought  in  New  England,  not  because  the  schools  of 
Massachusetts  were  the  first  in  time  —  for  Vir 
ginia,  if  not  New  Netherland,  may  dispute  that 
primacy  —  but  because  New  England  has  been 
the  teacher  of  the  nation's  teachers.  The  legisla 
tors  who  framed  the  early  school  laws  for  the  newer 
States  of  the  South  and  the  West  found  models 

in  the  codes  of  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut; 

i 


2       AMERICAN  SFIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

and  to  a  remarkable  extent  the  first  text-books 
used  in  every  State  and  Territory  of  the  Union 
came  from  New  England  publishers.  Harvard  and 
Yale  and  even  the  smallest  colleges  of  New  Eng 
land  have  attracted  students  not  only  from  all 
parts  of  America  but  from  all  quarters  of  the  globe. 
Scholars,  teachers,  divines,  and  college  graduates 
by  the  thousand  have  been  numbered  among  the 
sons  of  New  England  who  joined  the  great  tide  of 
migration  from  the  Atlantic  seaboard  to  the  fron 
tier.  Whether  the  western  limit  of  American  settle 
ment  was  in  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Illinois,  Kansas, 
or  Colorado,  the  schoolmaster  and  the  schoolma'am 
from  "  down  East "  were  there  as  true  volunteers  on 
the  firing-line  of  civilization  to  see  that  the  younger 
generation  was  not  permitted  to  grow  up  without 
the  knowledge  considered  essential  in  that  day. 

Though  the  educational  leadership  of  America  is 
now  held  by  no  one  section,  the  pioneer  work  of  the 
men  and  women  of  New  England  can  never  lose  its 
historical  importance.  In  the  story  of  the  New 
England  school  may  be  read  in  brief  the  story  of 
public  education  in  America.  A  description  of  dis 
trict  school,  academy,  or  college  in  New  England 
may  stand  with  very  little  change  for  thousands  of 
similar  institutions  throughout  the  country. 


EARLY  NEW  ENGLAND  3 

Of  the  early  settlers  in  America  the  colonists  of 
Plymouth  were  second  to  none  in  their  zeal  for  the 
education  of  their  children,  but  their  poverty  and 
the  arduous  task  of  turning  a  wilderness  into  a 
commonwealth  inevitably  postponed  for  several 
years  the  establishment  of  schools.  Children  were 
at  first  commonly  taught  at  home  until  the  colo 
nists  found  themselves  in  a  position  to  set  up  both 
elementary  and  grammar  schools.  There  was  no 
adequate  public  provision  for  instruction  until 
1670,  when  the  General  Court  of  the  colony  en 
acted  a  law  "granting  all  such  profits  as  may  or 
shall  accrue  annually  to  the  colony  from  fishing 
with  nets  or  seines  at  Cape  Cod  for  mackerel,  bass, 
or  herring,  to  be  improved  for  and  towards  a  free 
school  in  some  town  in  this  jurisdiction,  for  the 
training  up  of  youth  in  literature  for  the  good 
and  benefit  of  posterity."  The  town  of  Plymouth 
promptly  accepted  this  opportunity  and  built  a 
schoolhouse  which  served  also  as  a  home  for  the 
teacher.  Within  a  few  years  of  the  establishment 
of  a  system  of  public  instruction  in  Plymouth 
the  colony  was  merged  with  Massachusetts  and 
became  subject  to  the  laws  of  the  larger  colony. 

Massachusetts  Bay,  although  a  later  settlement 
than  Plymouth,  was  the  first  New  England  colony  to 


4       AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

make  its  schools  a  public  charge.  Compared  with 
the  scanty  numbers  and  resources  of  the  men  of  Ply 
mouth,  the  colony  of  Massachusetts  seemed  from 
the  beginning  strong  and  prosperous.  Among  its 
first  settlers  were  men  of  some  wealth  and  much  learn 
ing.  Such  men  were  quick  to  see  the  need  of  teachers 
for  their  children  and  were  equally  prompt  to  supply 
it.  In  1635  a  town  meeting  in  Boston  voted  to  hire 
a  schoolmaster  and  thus  founded  the  Boston  Latin 
School,  which  has  brought  an  honorable  record  down 
to  our  own  day.  This  institution  was  supported 
largely  by  the  generosity  of  the  wealthier  citizens, 
but  a  few  years  later  a  school  was  established  at 
Dorchester  and  maintained  entirely  by  a  public 
tax.  Other  Latin  schools  were  soon  built  in  the 
more  progressive  townships,  and  in  1642  an  ordi 
nance  of  the  colony  made  education  compulsory. 

The  law  of  1642  called  to  public  attention  the 
failure  of  many  parents  and  guardians  to  train  the 
children  in  their  charge  in  learning  and  labor.  It 
gave  the  town  authorities  the  power  to  punish  by 
fines  those  who  refused  to  give  an  account  of  the 
instruction  received  by  their  children,  "especially 
of  their  ability  to  read  and  understand  the  prin 
ciples  of  religion  and  the  capital  laws  of  this  coun 
try."  In  case  a  child's  education  were  persistently 


EARLY  NEW  ENGLAND  5 

neglected,  the  officials  of  the  town  had  the  right  to 
apprentice  him  in  some  fit  occupation  where  his 
improvement  would  be  better  looked  after.  If  this 
ambitious  ordinance  could  have  been  enforced  to 
the  letter,  Massachusetts  would  never  have  had  a 
boy  or  girl  within  her  borders  who  could  not  read 
and  write,  pursue  a  useful  trade,  and  pass  an 
examination  in  civics.  But  it  was  one  thing  to 
require  instruction  and  another  to  provide  it. 
Not  every  parent  could  furnish  the  means  for  pri 
vate  teaching,  and  not  all  the  towns  were  equally 
forward  in  establishing  free  schools. 

To  remedy  the  lack  of  adequate  facilities  for 
learning,  the  colony  in  1647  made  it  obligatory  on 
every  township  of  fifty  householders  to  employ 
some  one  competent  to  teach  reading  and  writing. 
Every  township  of  a  hundred  families  was  com 
pelled  in  addition  to  establish  a  grammar  school 
capable  of  preparing  boys  for  college.  The  schools 
thus  established  were  not  necessarily  free,  since 
fees  were  sometimes  charged,  nor  were  children 
compelled  to  attend  if  their  parents  preferred  to 
give  them  private  instruction.  But  three  main 
principles  were  established  by  this  early  law  which 
have  characterized  American  education  ever  since : 
that  the  duty  of  public  instruction  is  one  which  no 


6       AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

community,  however  small  and  poor,  may  be  per 
mitted  to  evade;  that  the  government  of  the  public 
schools  in  matters  of  detail  is  lodged  not  in  some  dis 
tant  central  authority  but  in  the  immediate  neigh 
borhood  where  the  schools  are  situated ;  and  that  the 
elementary  schools  are  distinct  from  the  secondary 
schools  which  prepare  for  college  or  university. 

Such  promising  beginnings,  however,  did  not 
lead  to  rapid  and  continuous  progress.  Some 
towns  found  it  cheaper  to  pay  the  fines  imposed 
upon  them  for  neglect  of  the  law  than  to  hire  a 
schoolmaster  and  openly  disregarded  the  ordinance 
of  1647.  Many  of  the  later  immigrants  to  Massa 
chusetts  had  less  of  that  zeal  for  learning  which 
distinguished  the  first  settlers;  and,  being  busy 
practical  men  engaged  in  trade  or  agriculture,  they 
did  not  see  the  need  of  Latin  for  their  children. 
Apart  from  these  discouragements  within,  Indian 
raids  on  the  backwoods  settlements  proved  to  be  an 
other  obstacle  to  learning,  the  strength  of  which  can 
readily  be  appreciated  from  the  following  pathetic 
petition  from  Dover,  New  Hampshire l : 

That  whereas  the  said  town  is  one  of  the  most  exposed 
towns  in  this  Province  to  the  insults  of  the  Indian 
enemy,  and  also  whereas  by  an  act  of  the  General  As- 

1  Walter  H.  Small,  Early  New  England  Schools  (1914),  p.  51. 


EARLY  NEW  ENGLAND  7 

sembly  of  this  Province  the  said  town  of  Dover 
(amongst  others)  is  obliged  by  said  act  to  keep  and 
maintain  a  grammar  school,  and  whereas  the  circum 
stances  and  situation  or  settlements  of  the  inhabitants 
of  said  town  lying  and  being  in  such  a  manner  as  it  is, 
the  houses  being  so  scattered  over  the  whole  township 
that  in  no  one  place  six  houses  are  within  call,  by  which 
inconveniency  the  inhabitants  of  said  town  can  have 
no  benefit  of  such  grammar  school,  for  at  the  times  fit 
for  children  to  go  and  come  from  school,  is  generally 
the  chief  time  of  the  Indians  doing  mischief,  so  that 
the  inhabitants  are  afraid  to  send  their  children  to 
school,  and  the  children  dare  not  venture;  so  that  the 
salary  to  said  schoolmaster  is  wholly  lost  to  said  town. 

Within  a  few  years  of  the  first  settlements,  all 
the  New  England  colonies  except  Rhode  Island 
made  public  provision  for  education.  Newport 
and  Providence  gave  generous  donations  of  land 
for  the  establishment  of  town  schools,  but  in  Rhode 
Island  before  1800  there  was  no  general  law  author 
izing  towns  to  maintain  public  schools.  The  back 
wardness  of  the  little  colony  in  matters  of  education 
was  due  largely  to  the  fact  that,  since  there  was  no 
union  between  Church  and  State,  the  Government 
was  not  concerned,  as  it  was  in  Massachusetts,  to 
sustain  an  educated  ministry.  Education  was  re 
garded  in  Rhode  Island,  just  as  it  was  in  England 
and  in  most  of  the  English  colonies  outside  the 


8       AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

region  of  Puritan  influence,  as  a  need  to  be  met  by 
private  initiative.  New  Hampshire  followed  the 
school  system  of  Massachusetts,  and  Maine,  as  a 
part  of  Massachusetts  throughout  the  colonial 
period,  shared  the  same  laws.  In  her  Constitution 
of  1777  Vermont  enjoined  upon  the  Legislature  the 
duty  of  establishing  a  school  or  schools  in  each 
town  "for  the  convenient  instruction  of  the  youth." 
Connecticut  has  an  educational  record  rival 
ing  that  of  Massachusetts.  Schools  were  well 
established  in  Hartford  before  the  middle  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  and  soon  schools  were 
made  compulsory  throughout  the  entire  colony. 
The  selectmen  of  each  town  were  required  to  see 
that  none  "shall  suffer  so  much  barbarism  in 
any  of  their  families,  as  not  to  endeavor  to  teach 
by  themselves  or  others  their  children  and  appren 
tices  so  much  learning  as  may  enable  them  per 
fectly  to  read  the  English  tongue,  and  knowledge 
of  the  capital  laws."  Towns  of  fifty  household 
ers  were  obliged  to  maintain  teachers  of  reading 
and  writing,  and  towns  of  a  hundred  household 
ers  were  required  to  establish  a  grammar  school. 
New  Haven  colony,  before  it  was  united  with  the 
towns  on  the  Connecticut,  enacted  similar  laws. 
In  1672  six  hundred  acres  of  land  were  assigned  to 


EARLY  NEW  ENGLAND  9 

each  county  in  Connecticut  to  endow  a  grammar 
school  in  the  "county  town." 

The  common  schools  which  taught  pupils  to 
read  and  write  English  early  supplanted  the  "dame 
schools"  and  other  private  schools  for  primary 
instruction,  and  they  were,  on  the  whole,  well  kept 
up  in  all  the  English  colonies  where  they  had  been 
established  by  public  authority.  But  the  Latin 
grammar  schools  were  essentially  exotic.  In  all 
features  except  their  public  support  they  were  in 
tended  to  resemble  the  secondary  schools  of  Eng 
land  and  as  a  result  were  strikingly  ill  adapted  to 
frontier  conditions.  The  general  tendency  of  the 
rural  townships  to  neglect  the  school  laws  affected 
the  grammar  schools  much  more  adversely  than 
the  elementary  schools.  In  many  places  only  three 
or  four  youths  cared  to  study  Latin  or  prepare  for 
college,  and  the  taxpayers  were  consequently  in 
dignant  at  having  to  support  a  schoolmaster  of  so 
little  value  to  the  community.  Although  the  gram 
mar  schools  were  not  supposed  to  admit  boys 
who  could  not  already  read  and  write  English, 
public  opinion  often  compelled  the  teacher  to  take 
pupils  at  a  very  early  age  and  coach  them  for 
grammar  school  work  by  giving  them  the  necessary 
elementary  instruction. 


10     AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

The  grammar  schools  prospered  most  in  Mas 
sachusetts,  especially  in  the  towns  within  a  con 
venient  distance  of  Harvard  College.  But  even  in 
Massachusetts  this  type  of  school  was  ultimately 
replaced  by  the  private  academy  or  preparatory 
school.  Today  in  the  system  of  public  education 
the  public  high  school  serves  as  the  connecting 
link  between  the  elementary  school  and  the  uni 
versity  and  thus  occupies  a  place  similar  to  that  of 
the  old  Latin  grammar  school;  but  the  old  rigid 
classical  course  of  study  and  the  old  paternal  over 
sight  of  the  pupils  is  now  found  only  in  certain 
private  boarding  schools. 

The  Latin  schools  in  their  day  gave  very  thor 
ough  instruction  in  the  limited  field  of  classical 
learning.  Boys  were  drilled  for  several  hours  a 
day  in  the  complexities  of  Latin  grammar  and  were 
encouraged,  and  frequently  compelled,  to  speak 
Latin  instead  of  English  in  the  classroom.  Some 
times  the  master  was  a  scholar  of  distinguished 
attainments,  a  graduate  of  Harvard  College  or 
even  of  one  of  the  English  universities.  Nothing 
is  more  surprising  in  the  records  of  colonial  times 
than  the  amount  of  conscientious,  laborious,  pro 
fessional  service  which  a  New  England  town  could 
thus  receive  in  exchange  for  a  few  pounds  a  year 


EARLY  NEW  ENGLAND  11 

and  the  right  to  pasture  a  cow  and  live  in  a  dilapi 
dated  schoolhouse.  Of  course  the  Puritan  school 
master  found  a  certain  compensation  for  his  meager 
salary  in  the  social  prestige  accorded  to  his  pro 
fession  and  frequently  enhanced  in  New  England 
by  its  association  with  religion.  Many  teachers 
were  also  ministers,  and  all,  whether  clergy  or  lay 
men,  were  required  to  be  "sound  in  the  faith"  and 
"of  sober  and  good  conversation." 

The  fame  of  the  more  successful  teachers  of 
colonial  times  has  come  down  to  the  present  day. 
The  Boston  Latin  School  was  fortunate  enough  to 
have  as  its  head  for  thirty-eight  years  the  famous 
Ezekiel  Cheever,  the  friend  and  instructor  of  Cot 
ton  Mather,  who  said  of  him  after  his  death  at  the 
age  of  ninety-four :  "He  had  been  a  skilful,  painful, 
faithful  schoolmaster  for  seventy  years,  and  had 
the  singular  favor  of  heaven,  that  though  he  had 
usefully  spent  his  life  among  children,  yet  he  was 
not  twice  become  a  child,  but  held  his  abilities,  in 
an  unusual  degree,  to  the  very  last."  As  principal 
of  the  Boston  Latin  School  he  received  "sixtie 
pounds  p.  an.  for  his  service  in  the  schoole  out  of 
the  towne  rates,  and  rents  that  belong  to  the 
schoole  and  the  possession  and  use  of  ye  schoole 
house."  He  was  the  author  of  a  text-book  of 


12     AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

elementary  Latin  which  came  into  general  use  in 
the  colonies  and  was  the  first  important  school  book 
published  in  America.  Elijah  Corlett  made  a  re 
markable  record  as  teacher  at  Cambridge.  Here 
he  taught  both  Indians  and  colonists,  but  his  in 
come  from  fees  was  so  small  that  on  several  occa 
sions  the  town  authorities  were  compelled  to  come 
to  his  relief.  Both  these  veteran  teachers  were 
celebrated  by  Cotton  Mather  in  a  couplet  which 
shows  that  their  work  was  at  least  appreciated 
even  if  it  was  almost  unpaid: 

'Tis  Corlett's  pains,  &  Cheever's,  we  must  own, 
That  thou,  New  England,  art  not  Scythia  grown. 

The  school  in  Roxbury  which,  according  to  this 
same  authority,  eventually  produced  more  scholars 
"than  any  town  of  its  bigness,  or,  if  I  mistake  not, 
of  twice  its  bigness,  in  all  New  England,"  was  es 
tablished  by  the  efforts  of  the  Reverend  John  Eliot, 
the  Apostle  to  the  Indians. 

The  teachers  of  the  elementary  schools  received 
in  general  even  less  for  their  labors  than  the  school 
masters  of  the  grammar  schools.  Often  they  were 
paid  in  commodities  other  than  the  scarce  coined 
money,  and  the  form  of  payment  varied  with  the 
products  of  the  town.  In  the  country  districts 


EARLY  NEW  ENGLAND  13 

grain  was  the  staple  compensation;  Maine  teachers 
were  often  paid  in  lumber;  Taunton  at  one  time 
paid  in  pig  iron;  and  the  town  of  Hingham  in  pails. 
In  some  of  the  earliest  contracts  wampum,  the 
Indian  shell  money,  is  mentioned.  Yet  these 
teachers  who  received  their  salaries  in  products 
having  a  market  were  more  fortunate  than  a  later 
generation  forced  to  accept  a  depreciated  paper 
currency  at  its  face  value.  The  nominal  salary  of 
the  colonial  teacher  was  increased  by  fees  from 
parents,  small  grants  of  land  for  pasturing  and 
gardening,  exemption  from  taxation,  and  the  right 
to  board  around  among  the  families  of  the  town. 
Lest  the  more  penurious  farmers  begrudge  the 
visiting  teacher  a  good  meal,  the  town  sometimes 
paid  a  small  sum  to  those  who  would  agree  to 
board  him  for  a  few  weeks. 

The  curriculum  of  the  common  schools  may  be 
summed  up  in  the  four  R's:  Reading,  'Riting, 
'Rithmetic,  and  Religion.  Many  of  the  earliest 
school  contracts  do  not  mention  arithmetic  at  all, 
but  the  practical  necessities  of  the  settlers  soon 
forced  this  subject  into  the  course  of  study.  Writ 
ing  involved  learning  to  cut  and  manipulate  the 
quill  pen.  Pupils  provided  the  quills  and  brought 
tbeir  ink  from  home,  as  its  manufacture  was  one 


14     AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

of  the  many  arts  of  the  colonial  household.  Read 
ing  and  religion  were  combined  in  the  school  text 
book,  and  a  knowledge  of  the  catechism  was  a 
universal  requirement. 

The  first  and  simplest  of  the  school-books  was 
the  horn-book,  an  English  invention  consisting  of 
a  small  board  with  a  handle  attached.  To  the 
board  was  fastened  a  sheet  of  paper  covered  with 
transparent  horn  to  prevent  the  paper  from  be 
coming  soiled  or  torn.  Through  this  necessary 
protection  the  pupil  could  read  the  letters  of  the 
alphabet,  certain  combinations  of  letters,  such  as 
"ab  eb  ib,"  called  the  "syllabarium,"  the  Lord's 
prayer,  and  at  the  bottom  the  Roman  numerals. 
For  more  advanced  children  the  chief  text-book 
down  to  the  end  of  the  colonial  period  was  the 
New  England  Primer,  originally  adapted  from 
English  models  but  changing  considerably  in  the 
nature  of  its  contents  as  it  passed  from  edition 
to  edition. 

The  New  England  Primer  began,  like  the  horn 
book,  with  the  alphabet  and  syllabarium.  Then 
followed  words  for  spelling,  short  sentences  for 
reading,  and  a  series  of  rimed  couplets  illustrated 
with  very  crude  woodcuts  for  each  letter  of  the  al 
phabet,  beginning  with  the  theological  assertion, 


EARLY  NEW  ENGLAND  15 

In  Adam's  fall 
We  finned  all, 

and  closing  with  the  scriptural  statement, 

Zaccheus  he 

Did  Climb  the  Tree 

Our  Lord  to  fee. 

The  religious  flavor  introduced  thus  early  into 
colonial  education  was  further  strengthened  by  the 
inclusion  of  several  prayers  and  hymns,  the  Shorter 
Catechism,  and  another  catechism  bearing  the  title 
Spiritual  Milk  for  American  Babes  drawn  from  the 
breasts  of  both  Testaments  for  their  soul's  nourish 
ment.  There  was  also  a  woodcut  of  John  Rogers 
burning  at  the  stake,  with  his  wife  and  "nine  small 
children  and  one  at  the  breast"  viewing  the  sad 
spectacle,  to  illustrate  a  poem  written  by  that 
martyr  to  his  children.  The  last  feature  of  the 
Primer  was  an  allegory  of  Youth  yielding  to  the 
temptations  of  the  Devil.  This  text-book  was  in 
use  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years,  and  it  is  recorded 
that  one  firm  of  printers  sold  37,000  copies  within 
seven  years.  After  the  Revolution  the  New  Eng 
land  Primer  was  gradually  driven  from  the  market 
by  Webster's  more  modern  schoolbooks. 

The  schoolhouse  was  almost  always  built  of  wood 


16      AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

and  was  likely  to  be  in  a  ruinous  condition.  Some 
times  it  was  only  a  log  cabin  with  one  room,  in 
which  the  children  were  seated  on  long,  unpainted 
benches,  with  nothing  before  them  but  bare  walls 
and  the  teacher's  desk.  Usually  the  room  was  kept 
sufficiently  heated  only  at  the  expense  of  ventila 
tion.  A  schoolmaster  writing  in  1681  thus  de 
scribes  his  schoolhouse:  "The  confused  and  shat 
tered  and  nastie  posture  that  it  is  in,  the  glass 
broke,  and  thereupon  very  raw  and  cold;  the  floor 
very  much  broken  and  torn  up  to  kindle  fires,  the 
hearth  spoiled,  the  seats  some  burned  and  others 
out  of  kilter,  that  one  had  well  nigh  as  good  keep 
school  in  a  hog  stie  as  in  it."1  The  state  of  the 
schoolhouse,  however,  varied  according  to  the  lib 
erality  of  the  town.  In  some  places  the  schools 
were  kept  in  excellent  repair,  though  in  none  of 
them  was  there  any  suggestion  of  the  modern  idea 
of  making  the  schoolroom  beautiful. 

The  schools  were  ungraded,  although  the  lit 
tle  children  just  learning  their  letters  usually  sat 
apart  from  the  rest.  The  pupils  studied  at  their 
seats  but,  when  called  upon  to  recite,  came  to  the 
front  of  the  room,  gave  the  teacher  the  book,  and 

1  Clifton  Johnson,  Old- Time  Schools  and  School-Books  (1904), 
p.  9. 


EARLY  NEW  ENGLAND  17 

rehearsed  their  lesson  as  well  as  possible  from  mem 
ory.  If  the  recitation  fell  very  much  below  the 
master's  expectations,  the  usual  result  was  a  sound 
flogging.  The  colonial  school  inherited  the  English 
tradition  of  harsh  discipline  and  even  exceeded  its 
inheritance.  Hot-tempered  instructors  were  not 
content  with  the  traditional  use  of  the  ruler,  birch, 
and  strap,  but  exercised  their  ingenuity  in  invent 
ing  new  punishments.  A  disobedient  or  trouble 
some  boy  might  be  compelled  to  stand  in  the  corner 
with  a  dunce's  cap  decorating  his  head,  stay  by  the 
hot  stove  during  recess,  hold  out  a  heavy  book  at 
arm's  length  until  he  was  exhausted,  have  his  nose 
pinched  with  a  sort  of  wooden  clothespin,  or  sit  on 
the  girls'  side  of  the  room  —  a  punishment  the 
severity  of  which  depended  upon  the  point  of  view. 
As  a  rule  the  more  conscientious  the  teacher,  the 
worse  time  his  pupil  had.  There  was  no  attempt  to 
make  study  attractive,  and  most  students  followed 
the  road  to  learning  only  under  bitter  compulsion. 
Girls  were  almost  never  admitted  to  grammar 
school,  although  it  was  not  at  all  uncommon  for 
a  teacher  to  give  them  private  instruction  after 
school  hours.  In  the  small  common  schools  of  ru 
ral  New  England  necessity  often  triumphed  over 
prejudice,  and  boys  and  girls  had  to  be  taught  in 


18      AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

the  same  room  and  at  the  same  time.  The  teacher, 
however,  was  very  careful  in  such  cases  to  seat  the 
girls  and  boys  on  opposite  sides  of  the  room.  In 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  laws  recognized  the  rights 
of  girls  to  at  least  elementary  instruction,  less  than 
forty  per  cent  of  the  women  whose  names  appear 
on  recorded  deeds  in  Massachusetts  during  the 
early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  were  able  to 
write  their  own  signatures,  the  rest  having  to  attest 
by  marks. x 

Dame  schools  filled  a  useful  place  in  providing 
the  first  instruction  of  boys  and  sometimes  the  only 
instruction  of  girls.  In  these  very  elementary  pri 
vate  schools  taught  by  women  in  their  own  homes 
the  little  children  learned  to  read  from  the  horn 
book  and  sometimes  to  do  sums  by  making  figures 
on  the  sanded  floor.  Girls  who  remained  long 
enough  in  the  dame  school  might  learn  to  read, 
write,  cipher,  sew,  recite  the  catechism,  and  even 
spell.  Sewing  in  the  dame  schools  and  in  more  ad 
vanced  private  schools  was  taught  very  largely  by 
the  making  of  samplers.  Some  of  these  were  simply 
copies  of  the  horn-book  with  decorated  borders  and 
show  that  the  sampler  could  teach  reading,  writing, 

1  G.  H.  Martin,  Evolution  of  the   Massachusetts  Public  School 
System  (1894). 


EARLY  NEW  ENGLAND  19 

sewing,  and  piety  in  the  same  piece  of  work.  The 
smallest  children  might  be  given  the  letters  of  the 
alphabet  made  in  gingerbread  and  be  permitted  as 
a  reward  to  eat  the  letters  which  they  could  recog 
nize.  Some  dame  schools  taught  nothing  but  the 
alphabet  and  were  chiefly  valued  as  safe  places 
where  a  busy  mother  could  leave  her  youngest 
children  during  part  of  the  day.  Although  the 
dame  schools  were  ordinarily  supported  by  small 
fees  from  parents,  in  certain  places  the  town 
paid  something  toward  their  upkeep  as  a  cheaper 
alternative  to  establishing  a  common  school. 

As  the  frontier  pushed  farther  westward,  it  be 
came  inconvenient  for  all  the  children  in  a  spacious 
rural  township  to  go  long  distances  to  a  single 
school.  The  custom  therefore  grew  up  of  moving 
the  school,  or  rather  the  master,  from  one  part  of 
the  township  to  another.  The  school  would  be 
taught  several  weeks  in  one  place  and  then  be 
moved  on  for  the  convenience  of  another  group  of 
children,  sometimes  staying  in  each  part  of  the 
township  for  a  length  of  time  proportioned  to  what 
the  neighborhood  paid  in  taxes.  In  the  latter  part 
of  the  eighteenth  century  Connecticut  and  Massa 
chusetts  empowered  the  towns  to  divide  themselves 
into  smaller  districts  for  the  purpose  of  managing 


20      AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

the  schools.  The  intention  of  the  law  was  good, 
for  its  aim  was  to  secure  educational  facilities 
for  every  part  of  each  township,  but  it  made  the 
schools  more  than  ever  dependent  upon  small 
neighborhoods  and  resulted  in  mismanagement. 

The  law  of  1789,  which  recognized  in  Massa 
chusetts  the  district  school  system  already  estab 
lished  in  fact  by  many  of  the  towns,  made  other 
interesting  changes  in  the  school  laws  of  the  State. 
Towns  of  one  hundred  families  were  no  longer 
compelled,  as  formerly,  to  maintain  a  grammar 
school.  This  requirement  had,  indeed,  long  been  a 
dead  letter,  and  the  law  recognized  existing  facts 
when  it  raised  the  limit  to  a  hundred  and  fifty 
families  for  a  part-time  grammar  school  and  re 
quired  a  full-time  school  only  in  towns  of  at  least 
two  hundred  families.  All  teachers  were  required 
to  have  a  college  education  or  else  present  a  cer 
tificate  of  learning  and  good  character  from  a  min 
ister  of  the  gospel  "well  skilled  in  the  Greek 
and  Latin  language."  Ministers  and  town  officials 
were  authorized  to  inspect  schools  every  six  months 
to  see  that  they  were  properly  conducted.  Ele 
mentary  schools  were  required  to  teach  arithmetic, 
spelling,  and  "decent  behavior,"  in  addition  to 
reading  and  writing  English.  This  law  marks  the 


EARLY  NEW  ENGLAND  21 

definite  triumph  of  experience  over  expectation: 
the  common  school  system  had  firmly  established 
itself  and  the  grammar  school,  in  which  the  found 
ers  of  New  England  placed  their  greatest  hope 
amid  frontier  conditions,  had  now  all  but  perished. 


es- 


CHAPTER  II 

SCHOOLS   IN   NEW  NETHERLAND 

You  must  urge  upon  the  States-General  that  they  should  „_ 
tablish  free  schools,  where  children  of  quality,  as  well  as  of  poor 
families,  for  a  very  small  sum,  could  be  well  and  Christianly  edu 
cated  and  brought  up.  This  would  be  the  greatest  and  most  use 
ful  work  you  could  ever  accomplish  for  God  and  Christianity,  and 
for  the  Netherlands  themselves.  —  John  of  Nassau. 

WHEN  the  Dutch  planted  their  colony  in  the  valley 
of  the  Hudson,  they  were  not  constrained  as  were 
the  Puritans  of  Massachusetts  Bay  to  devise  a  sys 
tem  of  public  instruction  but  found  in  the  institu 
tions  of  their  fatherland  a  ready  model.  Indeed, 
it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  the  Dutch  colo 
nists  themselves  did  not  establish  schools  but  merely 
accepted  those  provided  by  the  authorities.  So 
slight  was  the  effective  control  of  the  British  Gov 
ernment  over  the  New  England  commonwealths 
that  they  were  virtually  so  many  independent 
republics  allied  to  England  by  sentiment  and  tradi 
tion.  The  colonists  of  New  Netherland,  on  the 

22 


SCHOOLS  IN  NEW  NETHERLAND        23 

other  hand,  were  governed  autocratically  by  offi 
cials  of  the  Dutch  West  India  Company,  whose 
charter  of  1629  required  the  patroons  and  colo 
nists  to  support  a  minister,  a  schoolmaster,  and 
a  "comforter  of  the  sick."  To  maintain  relig 
ion  and  learning  every  householder  and  inhabit 
ant  was  subject  to  tax,  but  the  West  India  Com 
pany  furnished  the  schoolmasters  and  sometimes 
contributed  to  their  support. 

It  would,  however,  be  unjust  to  infer  that  the 
Dutch  colonists  were  at  all  indifferent  to  the 
schools  established  in  New  Netherland.  On  the 
contrary,  the  records  of  the  colony  show  how  eager 
the  settlers  were  to  have  schools  built  and  kept  sup 
plied  with  competent  teachers.  The  Dutchmen, 
many  of  them  educated  in  the  public  schools  of  the 
Netherlands,  would  have  considered  it  criminal  to 
allow  their  children  to  go  without  similar  advan 
tages  in  their  new  home.  But  since  most  of  the 
colonists  were  tradesmen  seeking  new  commercial 
opportunities  for  themselves  and  their  fellow- 
countrymen,  the  type  of  education  in  which  they 
were  most  interested  was  a  thorough  ground 
ing  in  the  bread  and  butter  subjects.  Unlike  the 
settlers  of  Massachusetts  and  Virginia,  the  Dutch 
colonists  never  founded  a  college  and  even  had 


24      AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

to  wait  for  some  twenty  years  after  elementary 
schools  had  been  started  before  they  had  a  Latin 
grammar  school. 

The  city  then  called  New  Amsterdam  was  the 
first  Dutch  settlement  to  enjoy  a  public  school. 
Adam  Roelantsen,  the  first  schoolmaster,  opened 
school  probably  in  1633.  It  must  be  confessed  that 
Roelantsen  was  far  from  being  in  all  respects  a 
credit  to  his  profession.  Little  is  known  about  his 
skill  as  a  teacher,  but  it  is  a  fact  that  he  was  con 
stantly  involved  in  lawsuits  and  frequently  accused 
of  slander  and  disorderly  conduct.  After  Roelant 
sen  abandoned  his  position,  the  school  was  con 
tinued  somewhat  irregularly  by  a  number  of  other 
schoolmasters.  For  want  of  an  adequate  building 
the  teachers  were  often  forced  to  keep  school  in 
private  houses  or  in  public  buildings  intended  for 
other  purposes.  The  pay  which  the  teacher  re 
ceived  was  frequently  insufficient  to  maintain  him. 
Sometimes  the  New  Amsterdam  school  could 
find  no  one  who  would  consent  to  undertake  its 
charge,  and  the  children  were  without  schooling  for 
months  at  a  time,  though  a  few  struggling  private 
schools  shared  with  the  public  school  the  work  of 
instructing  the  children  of  the  city. 

New  Amsterdam  was  not  the  only  Dutch  colonial 


SCHOOLS  IN  NEW  NETHERLAND        25 

town  to  support  a  public  school.  All  of  the  other 
towns  and  villages  of  any  importance  in  New  Neth- 
erland  established  schools  as  soon  as  they  were 
populous  enough  to  warrant  the  expense.  Even 
far-away  New  Amstel  (now  New  Castle,  Delaware) 
was  supplied  with  a  Dutch  teacher,  although  at 
that  time  the  majority  of  the  townsmen  were 
Swedes.  Only  in  the  country  districts  and  in  the 
poorer  villages  was  public  education  not  provided. 
In  the  outlying  settlements  the  difficulty  of  obtain 
ing  good  schoolhouses  and  good  teachers  was  even 
greater  than  in  New  Amsterdam,  and  in  spite 
of  every  effort  on  the  part  of  their  parents  many 
children  grew  up  without  any  regular  schooling. 

In  1652  a  Latin  school  was  started  in  what  had 
earlier  been  the  "city  tavern"  of  New  Amsterdam, 
but  the  experiment  was  very  soon  abandoned. 
The  colonists  thereupon  petitioned  the  West  India 
Company  to  send  them  some  one  competent  to 
teach  Latin  and  other  advanced  studies.  In  their 
appeal  they  pointed  out  that  many  of  the  citizens 
desired  for  their  children  the  advantages  of  a  Latin 
education,  but  that  there  was  no  place  nearer  than 
Boston  where  this  want  could  be  supplied.  In  1659 
the  West  India  Company  in  response  to  their  ap 
peal  sent  the  learned  Dr.  Alexander  Curtius  to 


26      AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

the  colony  as  Latin  schoolmaster.  He  received  a 
moderate  salary,  a  house  and  garden,  fees  from  his 
pupils,  and  permission  to  practice  medicine.  Not 
succeeding  very  well  with  his  charge,  however, 
Dr.  Curtius  was  soon  replaced  by  the  Reverend 
^Egidius  Luyck.  The  Latin  school  was  largely 
supported  by  the  local  authorities,  although 
part  of  the  teacher's  salary  was  guaranteed  by 
the  Company. 

The  Dutch  elementary  schools  in  America 
taught  little  except  reading,  writing,  arithmetic, 
and  the  catechism.  Sometimes,  as  in  the  New  Eng 
land  schools  of  the  seventeenth  century,  even  arith 
metic  was  omitted  from  the  course  of  study.  But 
religious  instruction  was  never  neglected;  in  fact, 
after  the  English  conquest  many  of  the  old  Dutch 
public  schools  continued  their  existence  as  private 
parochial  schools,  still  giving  instruction  in  the 
Dutch  language  to  the  descendants  of  the  first 
settlers.  The  change  was  the  more  easily  made 
because  even  under  the  Dutch  regime  these  schools 
had  been  in  part  supported  by  fees  from  well-to-do 
parents  who  had  children  in  attendance.  A  typical 
teacher's  contract,  with  one  Evert  Pietersen,  as 
signed  him  a  salary  of  36  florins  a  month.1  125 

1  A  florin  is  about  forty  cents  in  our  coinage. 


SCHOOLS  IN  NEW  NETHERLAND        27 

florins  for  board,  free  house,  a  school  building,  and 
free  passage  back  to  Holland  at  the  conclusion  of 
his  service.  Parents  whose  children  were  at  school 
paid  more  or  less  according  to  whether  the  pupil 
studied  reading,  writing,  and  ciphering,  or  only 
reading  and  writing;  but  it  was  also  stipulated  that 
"the  poor  and  needy,  who  ask  to  be  taught  for 
God's  sake,  he  shall  teach  for  nothing."1  Most  of 
the  school-books  were  religious  in  character  and, 
though  arithmetics  and  primers  were  not  unknown, 
the  Bible,  the  catechism,  and  the  psalm-book  were 
the  chief  readers  in  use.  Girls  as  well  as  boys  went 
to  the  public  school  but  sat  apart  from  the  boys 
or,  if  possible,  were  taught  in  another  room. 

Nowhere  in  America  did  the  schoolmaster  com 
bine  more  offices  in  one  than  he  did  among  the 
Dutch.  The  teacher  was  commonly  both  reader 
and  precentor  in  the  church;  frequently  he  was  also 
the  sexton;  sometimes  he  was  the  "comforter  of  the 
sick,"  a  ministration  which  blended  religion  and 
medicine.  Many  of  the  school  contracts  specify 
in  minutest  detail  the  incidental  duties  of  the 
schoolmaster  even  to  the  ringing  of  the  church  bell 
and  the  provision  of  water  for  the  baptism  of  in 
fants.  If  these  auxiliary  occupations  may  have 

1  KHpatrick,  Dutch  Schools  of  New  Netherland,  p.  68. 


88     AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

detracted  a  little  from  the  scholarly  dignity  of  the 
teacher,  they  nevertheless  enriched  his  purse  with 
much  needed  fees  and  increased  his  usefulness  in 
the  eyes  of  the  community.  If  long  hours  deserve 
a  good  salary,  the  Dutch  schoolmaster  was  cer 
tainly  not  overpaid,  for  the  school  day  began  at 
eight  in  the  morning  and  lasted,  with  a  noon  recess 
for  lunch,  till  four  in  the  afternoon.  There  was  no 
long  vacation  during  the  year,  unless,  of  course,  the 
school  was  unable  to  find  a  teacher.  There  were, 
however,  festival  holidays,  and  Wednesday  and 
Saturday  afternoons  were  usually  free. 

Though  the  public  school  system  of  the  Dutch 
colonists  may  have  been  imperfect  and  inadequate 
when  judged  by  the  standards  of  colonial  Massa 
chusetts,  it  was  superior  to  anything  that  the  newly 
established  English  Government  was  ready  to  put 
in  its  place.  The  English  settlers  practically  ig 
nored  the  Dutch  establishment  of  public  education 
and  sent  their  own  children  to  private  schools  or 
let  them  do  without  instruction  —  the  custom  not 
only  in  England  itself  but  in  the  majority  of  the 
English  colonies. 

The  people  of  New  York,  however,  made  a  few 
attempts  to  obtain  some  measure  of  public  sup 
port  for  the  schools.  In  1702  they  passed  a  law 


SCHOOLS  IN  NEW  NETHERLAND        29 

authorizing  the  public  support  of  a  school  teacher  in 
New  York  City  to  instruct  "male  children  of  such 
parents  as  are  of  French  and  Dutch  extraction  as 
well  as  of  the  English."  This  school  lasted,  it  is 
true,  for  only  seven  years,  but  in  1732  the  income 
from  licenses  issued  to  hawkers  and  peddlers  was 
granted  by  the  Government  to  a  school  for  teaching 
Latin,  Greek,  and  mathematics,  and  free  scholar 
ships  were  provided  for  twenty  young  men  from 
different  parts  of  the  colony.  But  this  school,  also, 
had  a  brief  existence. 

More  important  than  such  slight  and  temporary 
aid  of  popular  education  was  the  part  which  the 
colonial  Government  played  in  the  supervision  of 
private  schools,  even  though  this  oversight  was 
more  in  the  interest  of  religion  than  in  the  cause  of 
efficient  instruction.  No  teachers  might  come  from 
England  to  teach  in  New  York  without  the  con 
sent  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  no  resi 
dent  of  New  York  might  open  a  school  without 
license  from  the  Governor.  These  restrictions 
gave  the  Church  of  England  a  favored  position  of 
which  it  was  not  slow  to  take  advantage.  During 
the  eighteenth  century  the  instruction  of  the  poor 
of  New  York  came  almost  entirely  under  the  care 
of  an  Anglican  missionary  association  known  as 


30      AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in 
Foreign  Parts. 

The  activities  of  this  Society  were  by  no  means 
confined  to  New  York  but  affected  to  some  degree 
the  educational  life  of  all  the  colonies.  In  New 
England  the  strength  of  the  Congregationalists 
left  little  room  for  Anglican  missionary  effort,  and 
the  completeness  of  the  public  school  system  dis 
couraged  the  foundation  of  private  charity  schools; 
but  in  spite  of  these  handicaps  some  Church  of 
England  schools  were  organized.  In  other  parts  of 
America  the  Society  had  better  fortune,  particu 
larly  in  New  York,  where  the  rapidly  increas 
ing  and  cosmopolitan  population  and  the  lack  of 
common  schools  offered  a  unique  opportunity  for 
educational  effort. 

But  the  establishment  of  schools  was  a  second 
ary  matter  to  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of 
the  Gospel.  Its  chief  aim  was  evangelical;  its  main 
purpose,  to  convert  the  heathen  Indians,  to  confirm 
in  the  faith  the  adherents  of  the  Church  of  England, 
and  to  make  headway  against  heresy  and  dissent. 
But,  like  the  Jesuits  of  old  and  the  modern  mission 
aries  to  India  or  China,  the  missionaries  of  the  S.  P. 
G.,  as  it  is  familiarly  known,  soon  discovered  that 
the  only  way  to  evangelize  was  to  teach.  In  their 


SCHOOLS  IN  NEW  NETHERLAND       31 

charity  schools  they  emphasized  the  catechism  and 
a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  Anglican  ritual,  but 
they  also  found  it  advisable  to  teach  the  children 
"to  write  a  plain  and  legible  hand  in  order  to  the 
fitting  them  for  useful  Employments;  with  as  much 
Arithmetick  as  shall  be  necessary  to  the  same  Pur 
pose."  The  Society  supported  between  five  and 
ten  schools  in  the  colony  of  New  York  up  to  the 
time  of  the  American  Revolution  and  gave  aid 
to  many  others.  In  New  York  City  the  Trinity 
Church  charity  school  received  help  from  the  local 
authorities  as  well  as  from  the  Society  and  at  one 
time  held  session  in  the  City  Hall. 

The  officers  of  the  Society  exercised  great  care 
in  selecting  their  missionaries.  All  had  to  be  sound 
in  the  faith  and  well-affected  toward  the  existing 
Government,  and  married  schoolmasters  usually 
were  required  to  take  their  wives  with  them  to 
America.  Teachers  were  expected  to  send  home 
two  reports  a  year  of  the  progress  of  their  work, 
but  this  duty  they  frequently  neglected,  as  ade 
quate  supervision  was  impossible  when  the  central 
organization  was  separated  from  its  agents  by  the 
width  of  the  Atlantic.  The  Society  kept  its  schools 
supplied  with  generous  donations  of  text-books,  for 
the  most  part  of  a  purely  religious  character.  In 


32      AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

the  early  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  So 
ciety  devoted  no  small  share  of  its  efforts  to  the 
instruction  of  the  Iroquois  Indians  and  the  negro 
slaves,  but,  as  the  colony  became  more  populous 
and  settled,  it  shifted  the  emphasis  more  and  more 
from  purely  missionary  activities  to  ordinary 
school  work.  After  an  insurrection  of  the  slaves  in 
1712  had  been  unjustly  ascribed  to  the  educational 
work  of  the  Society,  the  colonists  looked  with  some 
disfavor  on  the  teaching  of  negroes,  but  the  Society 
did  not  entirely  abandon  its  work. 

The  English  made,  on  the  whole,  a  creditable 
educational  record  in  New  York.  As  a  result  of 
private  initiative  and  philanthropic  effort,  free 
elementary  education  was  provided  for  many  chil 
dren,  some  good  secondary  schools  were  established, 
and  a  flourishing  college  was  founded.  But  the 
cardinal  mistake  of  the  English  in  not  establishing 
a  public  school  system  had  baneful  effects  that  out 
lasted  the  colonial  period.  Free  education  became 
synonymous  with  charity  education,  and  the  school 
ing  which  the  New  England  lad  expected  as  a  right, 
the  New  Yorker  received  as  a  privilege  to  be  bought 
in  the  market  by  well-to-do  parents  or  given  as  alms 
to  the  poor.  Such  prominent  educators  as  Presi 
dent  Johnson  of  King's  College  early  advocated  the 


SCHOOLS  IN  NEW  NETHERLAND        33 

public  endowment  of  education,  but  it  was  not  until 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  that  the  battle 
for  the  free  school  system  was  finally  won. 

Another  obstacle  which  the  friends  of  learning 
encountered  in  New  York,  and  one  which  was  only 
less  formidable  than  the  tradition  that  education 
was  a  private  rather  than  a  public  concern,  was  the 
swamping  of  the  commercial  centers  by  incessant 
immigration  in  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  cen 
turies.  Private  educational  agencies  were  quite  un 
able  to  cope  with  the  growing  problem  of  illiteracy, 
especially  when  it  was  willful  illiteracy.  As  early  as 
1713  Chaplain  John  Sharp  of  the  royal  army  in  New 
York  complained  that  "the  city  is  so  conveniently 
Situated  for  Trade  and  the  Genius  of  the  people  are 
so  inclined  to  merchandise,  that  they  generally  seek 
no  other  Education  for  their  children  than  writing 
and  Arithmetick.  So  that  letters  must  be  in  a 
manner  forced  upon  them  not  only  without  their 
seeking  but  against  their  consent." x  It  was  just  this 
necessary  element  of  compulsion  that  was  lacking 
in  the  school  system  of  colonial  New  York,  and  the 
results  of  this  defect  proved  to  be  far-reaching. 

1  W.  W.  Kemp,  The  Support  of  Schools  in  Colonial  New  York 
by  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts 
(1912),  p.  68. 


CHAPTER  III 

SCHOOLS   OF   THE   MIDDLE   AND   SOUTHERN 
COLONIES 

We  press  their  memory  too  soon,  and  puzzle,  strain  and  load 
them  with  words  and  rules;  to  know  grammar  and  rhetoric,  and  a 
strange  tongue  or  two,  that  it  is  ten  to  one  may  never  be  useful  to 
them;  leaving  their  natural  genius  to  mechanical  and  physical 
or  natural  knowledge  uncultivated  and  neglected;  which  would 
be  of  exceeding  use  and  pleasure  to  them  through  the  whole  course 
of  their  life.  To  be  sure  languages  are  not  to  be  despised  or 
neglected.  But  things  are  still  to  be  preferred.  —  William  Penn. 

No  colony  was  ever  founded  in  a  nobler  spirit  than 
was  the  Quaker  settlement  planned  by  William 
Penn  in  the  wilderness  of  Pennsylvania.  Religious 
toleration,  fair  dealing  with  the  Indians,  and  the 
instruction  of  all  children  in  godliness,  industry, 
and  learning  were  parts  of  the  enlightened  plan 
projected  by  the  founder  and  first  proprietor.  The 
intentions  of  William  Penn  were  seconded  by  the 
settlers,  who  passed  a  law  that  all  children  should 
be  taught  "so  that  they  may  be  able  to  read  the 
Scriptures  and  to  write  by  the  time  they  attain  to 

34 


MIDDLE  AND  SOUTHERN  COLONIES    35 

twelve  years  of  age;  and  that  then  they  be  taught 
some  useful  trade  or  skill,  that  the  poor  may  work 
to  live,  and  the  rich  if  they  become  poor  may  not 
want:  Of  which  every  County  Court  shall  take 
care."  In  1683,  the  year  in  which  this  law  was  en 
acted,  Enoch  Flower  opened  a  school  in  Philadel 
phia  under  the  authority  of  the  Provincial  Council. 
Six  years  later  a  Latin  grammar  school,  which  still 
exists  as  the  William  Penn  Charter  School,  gave  the 
Philadelphia  children  an  opportunity  for  higher 
education.  To  this  school  poor  children  were  ad 
mitted  free,  but  those  who  could  afford  to  do  so 
had  to  pay. 

The  Friends,  or  Quakers,  resembled  the  Dutch 
in  their  zeal  for  elementary  education  and  their 
comparative  indifference  to  the  college,  though 
not  a  few  of  the  Quakers  were  themselves  graduates 
of  English  universities.  Yet  in  an  age  which  valued 
the  college  chiefly  as  a  means  for  training  an  edu 
cated  ministry,  the  Quakers  on  account  of  their 
peculiar  beliefs  had  less  reason  than  others  to  set 
much  value  on  higher  education.  They  believed 
not  that  the  clergy  were  an  order  of  men  set  apart 
from  the  community  by  superior  learning  but  that 
the  word  of  God  might  come  as  readily  from  the 
lips  of  an  ignorant  man  as  from  those  of  the  scholar. 


36      AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

The  Quakers  founded  no  college  in  colonial  times, 
and  their  schools  tended  to  lose  their  public  char 
acter  and  to  become  purely  denominational.  The 
very  religious  tolerance  of  the  Quakers,  which  was 
so  greatly  to  their  credit,  prevented  the  estab 
lishment  of  any  general  system  of  education  in 
Pennsylvania.  So  many  persons  of  every  denomi 
nation  flocked  to  this  haven  of  liberty  that  no  one 
church,  not  even  that  of  the  Friends,  was  able  to 
dominate  the  colony  and  impose  its  own  schools 
on  the  rest. 

In  the  eighteenth  century  Pennsylvania  suffered 
the  same  fate  as  nearly  all  the  other  colonies.  The 
educational  impress  of  the  first  founders  was  oblit 
erated  by  the  influx  of  immigrants  of  a  new  type, 
men  frequently  themselves  as  well  educated  as  the 
original  colonists  but  less  concerned  for  the  cause 
of  education.  The  submergence  of  the  Dutch 
schools  in  New  Netherland  and  the  lax  enforce 
ment  of  the  school  laws  in  Massachusetts  were 
paralleled  by  the  fading  out  of  William  Penn's 
ideal  of  education  in  the  colony  which  he  had 
founded.  In  some  respects  Pennsylvania  had  to 
face  greater  difficulties  than  did  the  other  colonies. 
Nowhere  else  in  America,  perhaps,  was  there  so 
little  unity  in  the  population  as  here.  Catholics, 


MIDDLE  AND  SOUTHERN  COLONIES    37 

Quakers,  Dutch  Reformed,  Lutherans,  Episcopa 
lians,  Baptists,  and  Methodists  all  had  their  own 
church  schools  and  refused  to  send  their  children 
to  any  other.  In  addition  to  the  more  powerful 
denominations,  an  unusual  number  of  tiny  sects, 
such  as  the  Moravians,  Mennonites,  Amish, 
Schwenkfelders,  Dunkers,  and  Seventh  Day  Bap 
tists,  founded  their  settlements  within  the  prov 
ince.  There  was,  moreover,  as  little  harmony  of 
race  as  there  was  of  religion.  The  Swedes  and 
Dutch  along  the  Delaware  still  clung  desperately 
to  their  old  language  and  customs;  Germans,  often 
referred  to  as  "Pennsylvania  Dutch"  by  their  Eng 
lish  neighbors,  settled  the  country  in  large  num 
bers;  and  the  Scotch-Irish  became  a  vanguard  on 
the  edge  of  the  backwoods  in  the  West. 

As  the  most  numerous  of  the  alien  elements  of 
the  population,  the  Germans  early  attracted  the 
benevolent  interest  of  the  English  and  to  such  a 
degree  that  in  1754  there  was  organized  in  London 
a  "Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Christian  Knowl 
edge  Among  the  Germans  in  America."  The  free 
schools  founded  by  this  missionary  agency  were 
unquestionably  needed,  but  the  Germans  resented 
the  patronizing  implication  that  they  were  fit  ob 
jects  of  charity,  and  they  also  feared  that  if  their 


38     AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

children  went  to  these  schools  they  might  forget 
their  native  language  and  abandon  the  religion 
of  their  fathers.  Isolated  by  distance  from  the 
well-educated  people  of  Germany  and  unwilling  to 
enter  heartily  into  what  was  to  them  a  foreign  cul 
ture,  the  Pennsylvania  Germans  too  frequently 
grew  indifferent  to  the  schooling  of  their  children, 
though  their  churches,  notably  the  Moravian,  la 
bored  to  keep  alive  to  some  extent  the  old  love  of 
learning.  In  consequence,  though  the  educated  were 
but  few,  they  never  wholly  "  ceased  out  of  the  land." 
Delaware,  settled  by  the  Swedes,  is  another  ex 
ample  of  high  colonial  hopes  disappointed.  Swe 
den  stood  second  to  no  country  in  Europe  in 
the  matter  of  elementary  education.  About  the 
time  the  Delaware  settlement  was  made,  it  is  said, 
there  was  not  a  peasant  child  in  Sweden  who  had 
not  been  taught  to  read  and  write.  The  instruc 
tions  for  the  colony  of  New  Sweden  in  1640  re 
quired  the  patrons  of  the  colony  to  support  "as 
many  ministers  and  schoolmasters  as  the  number 
of  inhabitants  shall  seem  to  require."  But  we  find 
the  colonists  of  a  later  date  complaining  that  they 
were  without  regular  schools,  that  the  clergy  who 
essayed  to  teach  the  children  were  unequal  to  their 
task,  and  that  there  was  an  almost  complete  dearth 


MIDDLE  AND  SOUTHERN  COLONIES    39 

of  school-books.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  New 
Sweden  was  no  longer  a  political  dependency  of 
the  mother  country,  the  Swedes  responded  to  this 
appeal  by  sending  over  catechisms,  primers,  and 
various  religious  works.  The  colonists  on  their 
part  supported  itinerant  schoolmasters  who  taught 
in  private  houses  and  combined  the  exercise  of 
their  profession  with  the  various  duties  of  reader, 
clerk,  sexton,  or  precentor  in  the  local  church. 

Parish  schools  and  a  supply  of  catechisms  from 
Sweden  did  not,  however,  suffice  to  keep  alive  a 
separate  national  culture  in  so  small  and  isolated 
a  community.  The  Swedish  colony  became  at  last 
but  a  part  of  an  English-speaking  community  of 
very  diverse  origin,  and  its  early  experiments  in 
education  left  no  traceable  mark  on  the  later  edu 
cational  history  of  Delaware.  The  Dutch,  during 
their  brief  occupation,  and  the  Quakers,  while  Dela 
ware  was  still  a  part  of  Pennsylvania,  encouraged 
free  schools  within  the  limits  of  the  province;  but 
in  the  eighteenth  century  education  in  Delaware 
fell  into  public  neglect  and  became  wholly  a  matter 
of  private  charity. 

New  Jersey,  for  a  time  part  of  the  Dutch  colony 
of  New  Netherland,  was  the  object  of  as  much  edu 
cational  solicitude  as  the  region  east  of  the  Hudson. 


40      AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

Later,  under  the  rule  of  the  "proprietors"  of  East 
and  West  Jersey,  the  English  undertook  the  task 
of  public  education.  In  1682  the  Assembly  of  West 
Jersey  granted  to  the  town  of  Burlington  the  island 
of  Matinicunk  in  the  Delaware  River  for  the  sup 
port  of  schools ;  and  at  different  times  several  other 
generous  land  grants  were  made  to  important 
towns.  The  Assembly  of  East  Jersey  authorized 
the  inhabitants  of  any  town  in  the  province  to  levy 
taxes  for  the  establishment  and  support  of  schools; 
but,  after  New  Jersey  became  a  royal  province  in 
1702,  this  attempt  at  founding  a  public  school  sys 
tem  was  not  followed  up.  New  Jersey  in  the  eight 
eenth  century  became,  like  all  its  neighbors,  a  land 
of  private  schools. 

The  Southern  Colonies  followed  more  closely  the 
educational  system  of  England,  since  they  were  not 
affected  either  by  the  Puritan  zeal  for  public  educa 
tion  dominant  in  New  England  or  by  the  Dutch, 
Swedish,  German,  or  Quaker  traditions  of  the 
parish  school  as  an  adjunct  to  the  local  church 
which  in  one  form  or  another  characterized  the 
school  systems  of  the  Middle  Colonies.  English 
traditions  favored  the  foundation  of  private  second 
ary  schools  and  colleges  under  public  patronage 
but  did  not  encourage  a  general  system  of  free 


MIDDLE  AND  SOUTHERN  COLONIES    41 

elementary  schools.  There  was,  however,  a  trace  of 
compulsion  in  the  laws  which  required  guardians 
to  take  care  that  orphan  children  received  an  edu 
cation  suitable  to  their  station  in  life,  and  in  the 
apprentice  laws  which  safeguarded  the  interests  of 
those  who  were  bound  out  to  labor.  One  or  two  of 
the  Southern  Colonies  advanced  a  little  beyond 
English  precedent.  Maryland  and  South  Caro 
lina  experimented  during  the  eighteenth  century 
with  a  system  of  tax-supported  county  schools, 
and,  though  the  law  was  not  carried  out  in  either 
colony  to  its  full  intent,  the  poor  of  the  more  im 
portant  towns  always  had  some  opportunity  for  a 
free  education. 

Maryland  passed  a  law  in  1696  creating  a  cor 
poration  to  establish  and  govern  county  schools, 
but  King  William's  School  at  Annapolis  was  the 
only  public  school  established  under  this  central 
ized  system.  The  Assembly  in  1723  established  a 
fund  for  the  county  schools  and  arranged  for  their 
government  by  boards  of  visitors  in  each  county. 
These  Latin  grammar  schools  were  free  to  the  poor 
but  required  fees  of  those  who  were  able  to  pay; 
they  varied  a  great  deal  in  merit;  and  they  had 
difficulty  in  finding  competent  schoolmasters  at  the 
small  salaries  they  offered.  As  late  as  1797  there 


42      AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

was  complaint  that  King  William's  was  the  only 
adequately  endowed  school  in  Maryland  and  that 
"two-thirds  of  the  little  education  we  receive  are 
derived  from  instructors  who  are  either  indentured 
servants  or  transported  felons/*1  It  gives  the 
modern  reader  something  of  a  shock  to  read  of  a 
reward  offered  for  the  return  to  his  master  of  a  run 
away  "schoolmaster,  of  a  pale  complexion,  with 
short  hair.  He  has  the  itch  very  bad,  and  sore 
legs,"  and  again  "he  is  a  great  taker  of  snuff  and 
very  apt  to  get  drunk." 

In  the  Carolinas  special  acts  by  the  colonial 
legislatures  permitted  individual  towns  to  estab 
lish  schools,  but  sometimes  a  town  failed  to  take 
advantage  of  this  permissive  law.  South  Carolina, 
by  laws  enacted  in  1710  and  1712,  founded  a  gram 
mar  school  at  Charleston  which  was  to  be  open  to 
the  poor  and  authorized  the  establishment  of  a 
general  system  of  parish  schools.  The  provisions 
of  these  laws  were  not  effectively  carried  out  except 
in  the  city  of  Charleston,  but  several  county  gram 
mar  schools  were  later  established  on  a  basis  similar 
to  that  of  the  Maryland  schools.  In  both  Carolinas 
the  education  of  the  poor  was  largely  taken  in  hand 

1  Bernard  C.  Steiner,  History  of  Education  in  Maryland,  U.  S. 
Bureau  of  Education  (1894),  No.  19,  pp.  34-38. 


MIDDLE  AND  SOUTHERN  COLONIES    43 

by  the  Church  of  England  through  the  charity 
schools  established  by  the  Society  for  the  Propaga 
tion  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts.  Georgia  was 
founded  so  late  in  the  colonial  period  that  it  hardly 
requires  any  special  notice  except  for  the  fact  that 
the  British  Crown,  when  it  took  over  the  colony 
from  its  trustees,  continued  to  support  a  minister 
and  two  schoolmasters. 

The  distinction  between  schooling  and  education 
was  particularly  marked  in  the  South.  Some  of 
the  best  educated  men  in  America  came  from  the 
South,  and  yet  some  of  the  best  educated  men  of 
the  South  never  saw  the  inside  of  a  school  building. 
Even  before  the  Revolutionary  War  many  planta 
tion  owners  hired  as  private  tutors  for  their  chil 
dren  men  who  might  have  any  degree  of  education 
from  that  of  the  indentured  servant  who  could 
barely  read  and  write  to  that  of  the  cultured  grad 
uate  of  Oxford  or  Cambridge.  Plantation  life  itself 
was  a  liberal  education  in  agriculture,  business 
management,  horsemanship,  and  the  conventions 
of  polite  society  —  subjects  as  essential  in  those 
days  to  a  well-rounded  career  as  any  of  the  more 
academic  branches.  If  a  type  of  education  is  to 
have  its  value  estimated  by  its  products,  the  South 
ern  plantation  must  rank  as  one  of  the  best  of 


44      AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

schools,  since  it  supplied  so  many  of  the  statesmen 
of  the  Revolution  and  of  the  early  republic.  The 
educational  advantages  of  the  plantation  were, 
however,  for  the  very  few.  The  poor  man  rarely 
had  an  opportunity  to  advance  his  children  beyond 
a  knowledge  of  the  three  R's  and  could  have  them 
taught  so  much  only  by  accepting  charity. 

Well-to-do  men  in  all  the  colonies,  but  especially 
in  the  South,  frequently  sent  their  boys  to  schools 
and  colleges  in  England.  Just  as  our  great  Eastern 
universities  today  draw  students  from  the  South 
and  West,  so  in  those  earlier  days  did  Oxford  and 
Cambridge  attract  the  ambitious  youth  of  America. 
It  was  hard  to  establish  colleges  on  the  new  con 
tinent  when  they  had  to  compete  with  the  prestige 
of  such  ancient  and  well-endowed  institutions  of 
learning  in  the  Old  World.  If  the  voyage  to  Eng 
land  had  not  then  been  so  long,  costly,  and  hazard 
ous,  several  of  the  colonial  colleges  might  never 
have  been  founded.  Some  discerning  Englishmen 
saw  in  this  intellectual  dependence  on  the  mother 
country  one  of  the  surest  bonds  which  kept  the 
British  Empire  from  disintegration,  and  they 
viewed  with  a  mixture  of  sympathy  and  apprehen 
sion  the  rise  of  new  academies  and  colleges.  Said 
one  William  Eddis,  a  surveyor  of  customs  at 


MIDDLE  AND  SOUTHERN  COLONIES    45 

Annapolis,  in  1773 :  "  When  the  real  or  supposed  ne 
cessity  ceases  of  sending  the  youth  of  this  continent 
to  distant  seminaries  for  the  completion  of  their 
education,  the  attachment  of  the  colonies  to  Great 
Britain  will  gradually  weaken,  and  a  less  frequent 
intercourse  will  tend  to  encourage  those  sentiments 
of  self-importance  which  have  already  taken  too 
deep  root,  and  which,  I  fear,  the  utmost  exer 
tions  of  political  wisdom  will  never  be  able  wholly 
to  eradicate."1 

Perhaps  Cecil  Rhodes  had  in  mind  the  omen  of 
this  true  prophecy  when  he  established  scholarships 
at  Oxford  for  the  youth  of  the  British  Dominions. 
When  a  colony  makes  its  own  laws  and  its  own 
hardware,  it  may  still  be  loyal  to  the  mother  coun 
try  from  motives  of  sentiment;  but  when  it  writes 
its  own  books  and  reads  its  own  newspapers,  it 
loses  all  sense  of  dependence  and  becomes  either  a 
new  nation  or  an  equal  partner  within  a  common 
federation.  The  schools  and  colleges  of  America, 
imperfect  and  inadequate  though  they  were, 
sufficed  even  at  an  early  date  to  create  a  separate 
"consciousness  of  kind"  among  the  colonists  and 
helped  to  make  possible  the  establishment  of  the 
United  States. 

1  Steiner,  op.  cit.,  p.  32. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   COLONIAL   COLLEGE 

After  wee  had  builded  our  Louses,  provided  necessaries  for  our 
livelihood,  reared  convenient  places  for  God's  worship,  and  setled 
the  Civill  Government,  one  of  the  next  things  wee  longed  for  and 
looked  after  was  to  advance  Learning  and  to  perpetuate  it  to 
Posterity;  dreading  to  leave  an  illiterate  ministery  to  the  Churches, 
when  our  present  Ministers  shall  lie  in  the  Dust.  And  as  wee  were 
thinking  and  consulting  how  to  effect  this  great  Work,  it  pleased 
God  to  stir  up  the  heart  of  one  Mr.  Harvard  (a  godly  gentleman 
and  a  lover  of  Learning,  there  living  amongst  us)  to  give  the  one- 
half  of  his  estate  (it  being  in  all  about  £1,700)  towards  the  erect 
ing  of  a  Colledge,  and  all  his  library.  After  him  another  gave 
£300;  others  after  them  cast  in  more,  and  the  publique  hand  of 
the  State  added  the  rest.  —  New  England's  First  Fruits. 

COULD  John  Harvard  revisit  the  university  which 
bears  his  name  and  the  town  which  bears  that  of 
his  own  Alma  Mater,  Cambridge,  he  would  doubt 
less  find  much  to  surprise  him,  but  he  would  find 
that  America  still  combined  the  most  munificent 
private  generosity  towards  the  cause  of  higher 
education  with  the  unfailing  aid  of  "the  publique 
hand  of  the  State."  The  colonial  college,  of  which 

46 


THE  COLONIAL  COLLEGE  47 

Harvard  was  the  first  example,  is  the  parent  not 
only  of  the  modern  private  university  but  of  the 
State  supported  institution  as  well.  Even  in  the 
colonies  outside  New  England  where  the  Govern 
ment  did  little  for  the  common  schools,  the  college 
was  never  left  wholly  dependent  upon  fees  and 
benefactions.  The  public  authorities  were  always 
ready  to  do  something,  if  it  were  only  to  hold  a 
lottery  in  aid  of  the  endowment. 

The  bequest  of  the  godly  John  Harvard  came  in 
the  nick  of  time  to  save  the  struggling  young  col 
lege  founded  in  1636  at  Newtown,  later  Cambridge. 
The  £400  voted  by  the  General  Court  of  the  Colo 
ny  of  Massachusetts  Bay  proved  hardly  sufficient 
to  build  a  flourishing  school,  although  it  amounted 
to  as  much  as  all  other  public  expenses  of  the 
colony  for  that  year.  John  Harvard's  bequest  of 
two  hundred  and  sixty  books,  mainly  treatises  on 
theology,  was  a  bigger  proportionate  addition  to 
the  intellectual  resources  of  the  community  than  a 
gift  of  the  million  volumes  now  on  the  shelves  of 
Harvard  library  would  be  today.  It  was  an  acci 
dent  or,  as  Puritan  Massachusetts  would  have  said, 
a  providence  that  the  College  ever  received  this 
bequest,  for  John  Harvard,  when  he  died  in  1638, 
had  been  in  the  colony  barely  a  year. 


48      AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

All  the  colonial  colleges  made  an  attempt  to  copy 
the  English  universities  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge, 
but  they  were  at  first  too  poor  to  become  universi 
ties  in  the  English  sense  of  federations  of  many 
undergraduate  colleges.  Each  college  was  wholly 
simple  in  its  structure,  with  but  one  faculty  and 
one  course  of  study.  The  American  system  never, 
indeed,  included  under  the  nominal  control  of  one 
examining  body  a  number  of  coordinate  colleges 
of  independent  foundation  offering  practically 
similar  courses  of  study.  When,  in  later  years, 
new  schools  and  departments  were  founded  and 
the  American  college  developed  into  the  American 
university,  there  still  remained  but  one  general  or 
academic  college  apart  from  the  specialized  pro 
fessional  schools.  The  early  colonial  college  itself 
was  originally  in  one  respect  something  of  a  pro 
fessional  school,  as  its  foremost  aim  was  not  to 
give  "the  education  of  a  gentleman "  to  young  men 
of  means  and  leisure  but  to  train  a  learned  ministry. 

The  formal  education  which  was  prevalent  in 
Europe  in  the  seventeenth  century  and  which  was 
transplanted  to  colonial  America  emphasized  two 
subjects:  the  classics  of  Greece  and  Rome  and  the 
duties  of  the  Christian  to  his  Creator.  In  those 
days  Latin  was  the  language  of  culture,  and  theology 


THE  COLONIAL  COLLEGE  49 

was  queen  of  the  sciences.  The  boy  who  had  grad 
uated  from  a  grammar  school  was  expected  to  be 
able  to  read  and  write  easy  Latin  and  to  know  a 
little  of  Greek  grammar.  Did  his  knowledge  ex 
tend  to  these  points,  he  had  satisfied  the  require 
ments  for  admission  to  Harvard.  Nobody  both 
ered  to  ask  him  whether  he  could  add  a  column  of 
figures  twice  and  get  the  same  answer  both  times, 
or  name  the  principal  rivers  of  New  England,  or 
even  spell  his  native  tongue  correctly.  Once  ad 
mitted  to  the  college,  he  spent  little  time  in  the 
formal  study  of  Latin  but  he  practiced  its  daily 
use  in  the  classroom  and  in  private  conversa 
tion.  Latin  was  the  key  to  knowledge,  and  the 
storehouse  of  wisdom  was  the  college. 

A  somewhat  varied  mental  diet  was  set  before 
the  student,  but  he  was  compelled  to  partake  of 
whatever  was  given  him.  No  broad  elective  sys 
tem  of  studies  a  la  carte  had  yet  been  devised.  The 
college  youth  of  those  days  studied  the  Bible 
throughout  his  course  and,  for  a  year,  "catecheti 
cal  divinity."  Mainly  that  he  might  be  able  to 
read  the  New  Testament  in  the  original  he  studied 
Greek,  and  that  he  might  be  able  to  read  the  Old 
Testament  he  took  a  year  of  Hebrew.  At  one  time 
Chaldee  and  Syriac  were  also  taught.  On  the  other 


50      AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

hand,  if  the  student  wished  to  learn  a  little  French 
or  German,  he  could  get  no  help  from  the  college. 
Logic,  ethics,  and  politics  were  each  studied  for 
two  years,  and  a  few  lectures  on  physics,  history, 
and  botany  were  sometimes  slipped  into  the  course. 
The  bachelor's  degree  was  conferred  upon  every 
scholar  "able  to  read  the  originals  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testament  into  the  Latin  tongue,  and  to  re 
solve  them  logically,"  provided  he  were  "of  Godly 
life  and  conversation."  For  the  master's  degree, 
the  bachelor  must  present  a  thesis  and  defend  it. 

In  addition  to  the  formal  defense  of  the  master's 
thesis,  a  number  of  "disputations"  were  intro 
duced  into  the  college  course.  Sometimes  these 
dealt  with  such  profundities  of  metaphysics  as, 
"Is  the  act  of  creation  eternal?"  Or  they  might 
involve  more  detailed  theological  problems  such  as, 
"When  Balaam's  ass  spoke,  was  there  any  change 
in  its  organs?"  Anon  it  would  be  such  a  scientific 
question  as,  for  instance,  "Were  the  aborigines  of 
America  descended  from  Abraham?"  Occasion 
ally  one  strikes  much  more  modern  notes:  "Is  the 
voice  of  the  people  the  voice  of  God?  "  " Is  it  law 
ful  to  sell  Africans?"  or,  to  choose  an  example  from 
disputations  at  Yale,  "Whether  the  Latin  and 
Greek  languages  are  studied  too  much  in  America." 


THE  COLONIAL  COLLEGE  51 

In  the  seventeenth  century,  when  Harvard  was 
practically  a  Congregational  theological  seminary, 
this  exercise  in  forensics  was  excellent  training  for 
the  practice  of  the  ministry,  and  a  century  later, 
when  law  and  politics  came  to  the  fore,  the  same 
type  of  disputations  brought  out  any  talent  for 
oratory  that  might  be  lurking  in  the  young  colle 
gian.  Cotton  Mather,  who  was  admitted  to  Har 
vard  College  at  the  age  of  twelve,  writes  of  his 
studies  there: 

I  composed  Systems  both  of  Logick  and  Physick,  in 
Catachisms  of  my  own,  which  have  been  since  used  by 
many  others.  I  went  over  the  use  of  Globes  and  pro 
ceeded  in  Arithmetic  as  far  as  was  ordinary.  I  made 
Theses  and  Antitheses  upon  the  main  Questions  that 
lay  before  me.  For  my  Declamations  I  ordinarily  took 
some  Article  of  Natural  Philosophy  for  my  subject,  by 
which  contrivances  I  did  Kill  two  birds  with  one  Stone. 
Hundreds  of  books  I  read  over,  and  I  kept  a  Diary  of 
my  studies.  My  son  I  would  not  have  mentioned  these 
things,  but  that  I  may  provoke  your  emulation. 

The  more  important  of  the  early  colleges  add  an 
interesting  chapter  to  the  story  of  the  rise  of  mod 
ern  American  education.  The  first  head  of  Har 
vard,  Nathaniel  Eaton,  had  a  career  that  was  brief 
and  inglorious.  In  these  days  of  committees  on 
academic  discipline,  it  is  interesting  to  read 


52      AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

he  was  finally  removed  from  office  for  beating  a 
boy  too  severely.  By  the  laws  of  the  college,  mis 
conduct  might  be  punished  as  in  the  common 
school:  "If  any  scholar  shall  transgress  any  of  the 
laws  of  God,  or  the  House  .  .  .  after  twice  ad 
monition,  he  shall  be  liable,  if  not  adultus,  to  cor 
rection;  if  adultus,  his  name  shall  be  given  up  to 
the  Overseers  of  the  College."  But  Eaton  exceeded 
his  privilege  in  this  respect.  What  was  worse,  he 
and  his  wife  neglected  the  material  welfare  of  the 
students,  who  had  to  make  their  own  beds  or  clean 
their  own  rooms  if  the  work  were  to  be  done  at  all, 
and  "their  diet  was  ordinarily  nothing  but  porridge 
and  pudding,  and  that  very  homely."  Complaints 
against  the  "commons"  have  been  frequent  in 
most  colleges  but  rarely  with  better  justification 
than  during  the  early  days  of  Harvard. 

Better  days  came  when  Henry  Dunster  took 
charge  of  Harvard  in  1640,  with  the  title  of  Presi 
dent.  He  was  a  vigorous  and  capable  executive, 
whose  energy  placed  the  college  for  the  first  time 
on  a  secure  and  permanent  basis.  But  he  fell  into 
the  heresy  of  "antipaedobaptism,"  and  Puritan 
Massachusetts  —  which  did  not  tolerate  the  Bap 
tists,  as  Roger  Williams  found  to  his  cost  —  put 
President  Dunster  out  of  his  position.  The  one 


THE  COLONIAL  COLLEGE  53 

concession  granted  to  him  on  his  dismissal  was 
that  he  might  be  allowed  to  remain  in  the  Presi 
dent's  house  until  the  winter  was  over.  After  his 
time  Harvard  became  such  a  battleground  for 
theologians  that  it  soon  became  difficult  to  find  an 
able  man  to  take  the  presidency.  Orthodox  Cal 
vinism  found  a  strong  champion  in  President 
Increase  Mather,  and  Liberalism  one  in  President 
John  Leverett.  The  latter  was  bitterly  attacked 
by  Cotton  Mather,  the  son  of  Increase  Mather  and 
himself  an  unsuccessful  candidate  for  the  presi 
dency  of  the  college.  He  complained  that  pious 
youths  who  went  to  Harvard  graduated  as  sceptics 
and  heretics,  that  the  students  filled  their  rooms 
"with  books  which  may  be  truly  called  Satan's 
library,"  and  he  demanded  an  inquiry  "whether 
the  books  mostly  read  among  them  are  not  plays, 
novels,  empty  and  vicious  pieces  of  poetry." 

The  suspicion  of  too  lax  theology  which  thus 
early  attached  itselr  to  Harvard  College  was  one 
cause  for  the  establishment  of  Yale,  the  third 
college  to  be  founded  in  the  English  colonies,  and 
the  first  American  instance  of  academic  parent 
hood.  Harvard  had  been  founded  by  men  edu 
cated  in  England,  but  Yale  was  the  work  of  grad 
uates  of  Harvard.  It  is  perhaps  remarkable  that, 


54      AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

considering  the  jealousies  of  different  colonies  and 
churches,  Harvard  remained  for  some  two  genera 
tions  without  a  rival.  Poverty,  the  French,  and 
the  Indians  seem  to  have  been  the  three  leading 
causes  for  the  educational  monopoly  so  long  en 
joyed  by  the  Massachusetts  college. 

In  1701  several  devout  Congregational  ministers 
gave  generously  of  their  scanty  hoard  of  books  to 
wards  the  foundation  of  a  college  in  Connecticut, 
rightly  thinking  that  the  way  to  begin  a  college 
was  with  a  library.  During  the  same  year  the 
General  Assembly  authorized  the  erection  of  a 
" collegiate  school"  to  fit  students  for  "Publick 
employment  both  in  Church  and  Civil  State,"  thus 
striking  from  the  very  beginning  that  note  of  state 
craft  and  public  service  which  has  ever  since  been 
the  dominant  ideal  of  Yale. 

For  several  years,  however,  Yale  College  lacked 
both  a  permanent  local  habitation  and  a  name. 
For  fifteen  years  the  college  was  located  at  Say- 
brook,  but  the  actual  teaching  was  frequently 
done  elsewhere.  In  1717  a  permanent  home,  the 
"College  House,"  was  begun  in  New  Haven,  and 
the  following  year  it  received  the  name  of  Yale 
College  after  Elihu  Yale,  one  of  its  earliest  and 
most  munificent  benefactors. 


THE  COLONIAL  COLLEGE  55 

Elihu  Yale  was  a  child  of  Boston,  though  for  the 
greater  part  of  his  active  career  he  was  in  the  In 
dian  civil  service  and  finally  rose  to  be  Governor  of 
Fort  St.  George  at  Madras.  But  he  always  re 
tained  an  interest  in  the  distant  land  of  his  birth 
and  was  easily  persuaded  to  give  books  and  money 
to  the  struggling  little  college  at  New  Haven. 

Another  benefactor  of  Yale  who  deserves  to  be 
mentioned  in  this  connection  was  Bishop  George 
Berkeley,  the  English  philosopher,  whose  cher 
ished  dream  it  had  been  to  found  a  college  in  the 
New  World.  His  first  thought  was  to  establish 
one  in  the  Bermudas  but,  unable  to  realize  this 
plan,  he  wisely  turned  to  Yale  instead.  He  gave 
his  Rhode  Island  farm,  still  known  as  the  Dean's 
farm,  to  the  college  and  also  presented  it  with 
a  carefully  selected  library  of  nearly  a  thousand 
volumes.  The  roll  of  the  Berkeleyan  scholarship 
which  he  founded  bears  the  names  of  twelve  college 
presidents.  His  name  is  further  commemorated 
in  the  seat  of  a  still  larger  institution  on  the  other 
side  of  the  continent,  the  University  of  California. 

With  the  foundation  of  Harvard  and  Yale  the 
needs  of  the  Congregationalists  were  met.  Those 
who  considered  Harvard  too  liberal  could  obtain  a 
purer  Calvinism  from  the  sister  college.  But  other 


56      AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

denominations  were  growing  to  importance  and 
were  demanding  educational  opportunities.  The 
needs  of  the  Presbyterian  community  were  met  by 
the  organization  of  the  College  of  New  Jersey  at 
Princeton ;  the  Dutch  Reformed  could  go  to  Queens, 
now  Rutgers;  the  Anglicans  had  King's,  now  Col 
umbia,  and  the  Baptists,  Brown.  During  the 
eighteenth  century  an  increasing  number  of  young 
men  went  to  college  who  had  no  thoughts  of  enter 
ing  the  ministry,  and  they  were  usually  made 
welcome  regardless  of  any  niceties  of  creed.  In 
the  charter  of  Brown  University,  for  example, 
there  was  this  provision:  "Into  this  Liberal  & 
Catholic  Institution  shall  never  be  admitted  any 
Religious  Tests  but  on  the  Contrary  all  the  Mem 
bers  hereof  shall  for  ever  enjoy  full  free  Absolute 
and  uninterrupted  Liberty  of  Conscience."  Words 
could  hardly  be  more  emphatic,  and  the  liberal 
intention  of  the  Baptist  founders  was  further 
demonstrated  by  another  provision  giving  a  cer 
tain  number  of  Congregationalists,  Presbyterians, 
Quakers,  and  Episcopalians  places  on  the  Board 
of  Trustees.  Yet  the  rules  of  Brown  forbade  any 
student  to  assert  his  disbelief  in  Christianity,  ex 
cept  "Young  Gentlemen  of  the  Hebrew  Nation." 
Of  all  the  colonial  colleges  the  nearest  to  a  complete 


THE  COLONIAL  COLLEGE  57 

independence  of  denominational  influences  was 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  which  was  founded 
in  the  middle  of  the  century. 

The  eighteenth  century  witnessed  not  only  a  re 
laxation  of  strict  doctrinal  requirements  in  the  col 
leges  but  the  introduction  of  a  broader  curriculum. 
Hebrew  took  a  minor  place  in  the  course  of  study, 
and  more  emphasis  was  placed  upon  the  purely 
literary  side  of  Greek  and  Latin.  More  attention 
began  to  be  paid  to  mathematics  and  the  sciences, 
and  every  college  did  its  best  to  obtain  a  few  physi 
cal  and  astronomical  instruments  with  which  to 
demonstrate  to  the  pupils  the  wonders  of  nature 
and  to  the  parents  the  fact  that  the  institution 
was  awake  to  the  spirit  of  the  times.  Nothing 
could  be  more  significant  than  these  words  from 
the  prospectus  issued  in  1754  by  Samuel  John 
son,  the  first  President  of  King's  College,  now 
Columbia  University: 

And  lastly,  a  serious,  virtuous,  and  industrious  Course 
of  Life  being  first  provided  for,  it  is  further  the  Design 
of  this  College  to  instruct  and  perfect  the  Youth  in  the 
Learned  Languages,  and  in  the  Arts  of  reasoning  ex 
actly,  of  writing  correctly,  and  speaking  eloquently;  and 
in  the  Arts  of  numbering  and  measuring;  of  Surveying 
and  Navigation,  of  Geography  and  History,  of  Husban 
dry,  Commerce  and  Government,  and  in  the  Knowledge 


58     AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

of  all  Nature  in  the  Heavens  above  us,  and  in  the  Air, 
Water  and  Earth  around  us,  and  the  various  kinds 
of  Meteors,  Stones,  Mines  and  Minerals,  Plants  and 
Animals,  and  of  every  Thing  useful  for  the  Comfort, 
the  Convenience  and  the  Elegance  of  Life,  in  the  chief 
Manufactures  relating  to  any  of  these  Things:  And, 
finally,  to  lead  them  from  the  Study  of  Nature  to  the 
Knowledge  of  themselves,  and  of  the  God  of  Nature, 
and  their  Duty  to  Him,  themselves,  and  one  another, 
and  every  Thing  that  can  contribute  to  their  true 
Happiness,  both  here  and  hereafter. 


It  may,  indeed,  be  fairly  questioned  whether  King's 
College  or  any  other  college  of  the  time  could  even 
approximate  the  realization  of  such  a  comprehen 
sive  ideal  as  this.  But  it  is  certain  that  no  college 
or  university  since  then  has  advanced  beyond  it, 
and  it  is  equally  certain  that  by  the  time  of  the 
Revolution  all  the  American  colleges  were  more  or 
less  actuated  by  a  belief  that  education  should 
include  more  than  piety  and  grammar. 

The  last  thing  to  be  modernized  in  the  American 
college  was  its  discipline.  The  rod  was,  indeed, 
finally  expelled  from  the  higher  institutions  of 
learning.  But  the  undergraduate  was  bound  to  a 
fixed  routine  of  life  by  a  double  system  of  laws, 
those  of  the  college  and  those  of  the  campus.  The 
college  authorities  saw  to  it  that  the  student  arose 


THE  COLONIAL  COLLEGE  59 

betimes,  usually  at  six  o'clock,  that  he  missed  no 
lectures  or  recitations,  that  he  kept  regular  hours 
of  study,  that  he  shunned  all  bad  habits,  and  that 
on  all  occasions  he  showed  due  courtesy  and 
subordination  to  his  superiors.  In  Harvard,  for 
example,  it  was  ordered  that 

No  scholar  shall  take  tobacco,  unless  permitted  by  the 
President,  with  the  consent  of  their  parents  and  guar 
dians,  and  on  good  reason  first  given  by  a  physician, 
and  then  in  a  sober  and  private  manner. 

To  see  that  such  rules  were  kept,  the  student  was 
deprived  of  the  right  of  privacy.  A  rather  amus 
ing  regulation  at  Brown  reveals  the  existence  of  a 
system  of  "  domiciliary  visits  "  which  today  would 
be  thought  to  verge  on  the  intrusive: 

No  student  shall  refuse  to  open  the  door  when  he  shall 
hear  the  stamp  of  the  foot  or  staff  at  his  door  in  the  en 
try,  which  shall  be  a  token  that  an  officer  of  instruction 
desires  admission,  which  token  every  student  is  forbid 
to  counterfeit,  or  imitate  under  any  pretense  whatever. 

And  were  these  students  too  docile  to  require  such 
rigid  discipline  or  might  the  officer  of  instruction 
who  banged  on  the  floor  outside  the  study  expect 
to  find  some  mischief  within?  To  tell  the  truth, 
the  colonial  undergraduate  at  certain  times  and 
D laces  was  more  unruly  than  his  counterpart  of  the 


60      AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

present  day.  Let  Philip  Fithian  relate  from  a  page 
of  his  diary  for  1770  how  things  then  went  in  the 
good  Presbyterian  College  of  New  Jersey.  Among 
the  amusements  he  specifies  are: 

Strewing  the  entries  in  the  Night  with  greasy  Feathers; 
freezing  the  Bell ;  Ringing  it  at  late  Hours  of  the  Night 
.  .  .  writing  witty  pointed  anonymous  Papers  .  .  . 
Picking  from  the  neighborhood  now  and  then  a  plump 
fat  Hen  or  Turkey  .  .  .  Darting  Sunbeams  upon  the 
Town-People,  Reconoitering  Houses  in  the  Town,  & 
ogling  Women  with  a  Telescope  —  Making  Squibs,  & 
other  frightful  compositions  with  Gunpowder,  &  light 
ing  them  in  the  Rooms  of  timorous  Boys  &  new  comers. 

Yet  in  the  same  college  of  which  Mr.  Fithian  tells 
such  mischievous  deeds  and  at  the  same  period, 
the  faculty,  ever  solicitous  for  the  good  conduct  of 
the  students  in  their  charge,  prohibited  the  game 
of  shinny  because  it  sometimes  resulted  in  acci 
dents  and  because  there  were  "many  amusements 
both  more  honorable  and  more  useful  in  which 
they  are  indulged." 

An  interesting  glimpse  of  student  life  in  those 
distant  college  days  is  given  in  the  following  letter: 

Written  at  Princeton,  Jan.  13,  Anno  1772. 

VERY  DEAR,  &  MUCH  RESPECTED  FATHER, 

Through  the  distinguished  Kindness  of  Heaven.  I 
am  in  good  Health,  &  have  much  Cause  to  be  delighted 


THE  COLONIAL  COLLEGE  61 

with  my  Lot.  I  would  not  change  my  Condition  nor 
give  up  the  Prospect  I  have  before  me,  on  any  Terms 
almost  whatever. 

I  am  not  much  hurried  this  Winter  with  my  Studies; 
but  I  am  trying  to  advance  myself  in  an  Acquaintance 
with  my  fellow-Creatures,  &  with  the  Labours  of  the 
"Mighty  Dead." 

I  am  sorry  that  I  may  inform  you,  that  two  of  our 
Members  were  expelled  from  the  College  yesterday;  not 
for  Drunkenness,  nor  Fighting,  not  for  Swearing,  nor 
Sabbath-Breaking.  But,  they  were  sent  from  this  Sem 
inary,  where  the  greatest  Pains  and  Care  are  taken  to 
cultivate  and  encourage  Decency,  &  Honesty,  &  Honour, 
for  stealing  Hens!  Shameful,  mean,  unmanly  Conduct ! 

If  a  Person  were  to  judge  of  the  generality  of  Stu 
dents,  by  the  Conduct  of  such  earth-born,  insatiate 
Helluo's;  or  by  the  detested  Character  of  wicked  In 
dividuals,  (which  is  generally  soonest  &  most  exten 
sively  propagated  &  known  abroad,)  how  terrible  an 
Idea  must  he  have! 

Please  to  remember  my  kind  Regards  to  my 
Brothers;  Sister  BECKA  &  the  whole  Family.  I  feel 
my  Heart  warm  with  Esteem  for  them!  but  can  only 
further,  at  present,  write  myself,  dear  Father,  Yours, 

P.  FITHIAN 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  organized 
athletics  had  little  place  in  the  colonial  college 
compared  with  their  vogue  in  the  modern  Ameri 
can  college  and  university.  Even  as  recently 
as  the  Civil  War  an  English  observer,  while 


62      AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

greatly  praising  the  earnest  zeal  of  the  American 
undergraduate  in  his  studies,  had  this  to  say: 

The  utmost  physical  recreation  seemed  to  consist  in  a 
country  walk,  and  I  doubt  if  even  this  was  com 
mon.  This  absence  of  desire  for  physical  sports  seems 
more  or  less  common  throughout  America,  and  is 
very  strange  in  the  eyes  of  those  accustomed  to  the  ex 
hibition  of  animal  spirits  in  the  English  youth  of 
both  sexes.1 

But  the  current  of  youthful  energy  which  was  for 
bidden  to  flow  freely  in  the  path  of  athletics  found 
its  outlets  elsewhere,  and  not  only  in  miscellane 
ous  mischief  such  as  shocked  the  young  Fithian. 
There  were  no  Greek  letter  societies  until  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  was  organized  in  1776,  but  rival  literary 
societies  with  long  Greek  names  served  equally 
well  as  centers  of  social  life  and  generators  of  clan 
loyalty.  Ritual  functions  accumulated  around 
commencement  and  other  college  anniversaries. 
Special  local  customs,  such  as  the  burning  of  Euclid 
at  the  end  of  a  mathematical  course,  took  root  and 
spread,  and  even  before  the  advent  of  college  jour 
nalism  the  poet  and  the  satirist  found  opportunity 
to  make  known  their  talent  to  the  campus. 

'Sophia  Jex  Blake,  A   Visit  to  Some  American  Schools   and 
Colleges  (1867),  p.  33. 


THE  COLONIAL  COLLEGE  63 

However  greatly  the  student  may  have  resented 
the  paternal  oversight  of  his  conduct  which  custom 
then  required  of  the  faculty,  he  submitted  willingly 
to  the  no  less  exacting  informal  discipline  imposed 
upon  him  by  his  older  fellows,  hoping  perhaps  to 
become  a  despot  in  his  turn.  The  Freshman  rules 
of  today  are  but  a  survival  of  the  iron  code  preva 
lent  in  colonial  times.  The  English  fagging  system 
still  obtained;  Freshmen  were  compelled  to  perform 
"all  reasonable  errands  for  any  superior,"  as  the 
Yale  rules  of  1764  put  it.  To  quote  further  from 
the  Yale  code,  "A  Senior  may  take  a  Freshman 
from  a  Sophomore,  a  Bachelor  from  a  Junior,  and 
a  Master  from  a  Senior."  The  Freshman  must 
stand  aside  for  upperclassmen  at  entrances  or 
on  stairways,  must  refrain  from  such  boisterous 
conduct  as  running  in  the  college  yard  or  calling 
from  a  window,  and  must  not  sit  in  the  presence 
of  an  upperclassman  or  other  superior  without 
special  permission. 

These  questions  of  college  life  are  not  so  remote 
from  the  main  purpose  of  education  as  they  may 
seem.  Just  as  the  instructor  made  correctness  and 
propriety  of  expression  the  aim  of  literary  teaching 
and  discouraged  the  original  if  it  were  also  the  un 
conventional,  and  just  as  the  college  President  and 


64      AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

his  assistants  made  the  faith  and  morals  of  their 
charges  their  chief  concern,  so  did  the  student  body 
accept  and  impose  its  own  discipline  to  curb  the 
eccentric  or  nonconformist  Freshman.  Individu 
ality,  in  a  word,  was  taken  for  granted,  but  it 
was  something  to  be  restrained  rather  than  fos 
tered.  Perhaps  this  was  a  wise  course  in  a  frontier 
commonwealth;  perhaps  this  type  of  disciplinary 
education  was  necessary  to  give  social  cohesion  to 
the  young  republic  whose  leaders  and  founders 
were  trained  by  the  colonial  college.  At  all  events, 
the  education  provided  was,  as  far  as  it  went,  no 
sham.  College  was  no  excuse  for  idling,  as  too 
commonly  was  the  case  in  eighteenth  century 
Oxford  and  Cambridge.  The  American  student 
obtained  his  degree  only  by  hard  intellectual 
work  and,  not  infrequently,  he  remained  in  college 
only  by  supporting  himself  there  by  hard  work 
of  another  kind™  America  had  yet  to  create  a 
leisure  class. 


CHAPTER  V 

<yM?#')qi%W^pQ.mv$  :     wjjnoijul' 

FRANKLIN   AND    PRACTICAL   EDUCATION 


Franklin's  is  the  weightiest  voice  that  has  as  yet  sounded  from 
across  the  Atlantic.  —  Matthew  Arnold. 


FRANKLIN'S  name  is  likely  to  occur  in  the  first 
paragraphs  of  any  history  of  American  activities, 
whether  the  subject  be  diplomacy  or  printing,  elec 
tricity  or  finance,  literature  or  ventilation,  religion 
or  soap-making.  Certainly  it  would  be  impossible 
to  write  of  American  education  without  mention 
of  the  various  projects  that  originated  in  his  ver 
satile  and  ingenious  mind.  Franklin  was  self- 
educated.  His  theory  and  practice  of  mental  and 
moral  education  are  given  in  his  Autobiography. 
Franklin  was  sent  to  the  Boston  Grammar  School 
when  he  was  eight  but  was  soon  withdrawn  for,  as 
the  youngest  son  of  seventeen  children,  he  was 
needed  by  his  father  to  assist  in  molding  tallow 
candles.  At  the  age  of  twelve  he  was  apprenticed 
to  a  brother  who  was  a  printer  and  thus  was  started 

5  65 


66     AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

upon  the  path,  since  followed  by  many  Americans, 
that  leads  through  journalism  to  statesmanship. 
Giving  his  nights  to  the  study  of  Addison  —  by 
means  of  an  odd  volume  of  the  Spectator  purloined 
from  a  bookseller  —  he  taught  himself  a  style  quite 
un-Addisonian,  a  terse,  brisk,  businesslike,  plain, 
matter-of-fact  style  that  has  since  become  charac 
teristic  of  American  newspapers.  The  lucidity  of 
his  papers  on  electricity  is  in  marked  contrast  with 
the  bombastic  and  obscure  style  of  contemporary 
savants.  He  even  ventured  to  carry  his  clarity 
into  the  realms  of  diplomacy  and  philosophy, 
where  it  was  still  more  of  an  innovation. 

His  theory  of  conduct  he  was  not  afraid  to  put 
to  the  pragmatic  test  —  and  it  worked.  Entering 
Philadelphia  as  a  runaway  apprentice  at  the  age  of 
seventeen,  penniless  and  ragged,  he  was  able,  by 
the  practice  of  the  thrift  and  vigilance  that  he 
preached,  to  retire  with  a  competency  at  the  age 
of  forty-two  in  order  to  devote  himself  to  re 
searches  in  electricity,  though  the  calls  of  pub 
lic  service  kept  him  busy  throughout  his  long 
life.  He  found  Philadelphia  behind  Boston  in 
two  respects,  "there  being  no  provision  for  de 
fense  nor  for  a  compleat  education  of  youth;  no 
militia  nor  any  college."  He  promptly  set  about 


FRANKLIN  AND  PRACTICAL  EDUCATION  67 

remedying  both  defects  and  in  the  course  of  time 
was  successful. 

His  first  step  in  the  way  of  cooperative  effort  was 
the  formation  of  the  Junto,  a  sort  of  fraternity  or 
debating  society,  somewhat  after  the  plan  of  the 
Benefit  Societies  that  Cotton  Mather  had  started 
in  the  Congregational  churches  of  Massachusetts. 
The  dozen  young  men  who  composed  it  met  every 
Friday  evening  to  discuss  political,  scientific,  and 
moral  questions,  and  to  consider  ways  of  helping 
one  another  and  the  community.  This  may  be 
regarded  as  the  precursor  of  the  American  lyceum 
which  was  to  exercise  so  powerful  an  influence  over 
the  thought  and  politics  of  the  nation  in  the  cen 
tury  to  come.  Each  member  of  the  Junto,  at 
Franklin's  suggestion,  agreed  to  put  the  few  books 
he  owned  into  a  room  where  they  could  be  used  in 
common.  He  next  obtained  subscriptions  from 
fifty  persons  and  was  able  to  send  off  to  London  an 
order  for  £45  worth  of  books.  In  this  way  a  per 
manent  circulating  library  was  opened,  with  Frank 
lin  as  librarian  to  give  out  the  books  once  a  week. 
To  the  Junto  we  therefore  owe  the  origin  of  the 
public  library  system  which  in  America  has  at 
tained  proportions  unequaled  anywhere  else  in  the 
world.  As  Franklin  says: 


68     AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

This  was  the  mother  of  all  the  North  American  sub 
scription  libraries,  now  so  numerous.  It  is  become  a 
great  thing  in  itself  and  continually  increasing.  These 
libraries  have  improved  the  general  conversation 
of  the  Americans,  made  the  common  trades  men  and 
farmers  as  intelligent  as  most  gentlemen  from  other 
countries,  and  perhaps  have  contributed  in  some 
degree  to  the  stand  so  generally  made  throughout  the 
colonies  in  defense  of  their  privileges. 

To  estimate  the  value  or  trace  the  influence  of 
the  library  movement  started  by  Benjamin  Frank 
lin  is  impossible  here,  but  one  of  its  many  radia 
tions  is  of  educational  interest.  Franklin's  popu 
larity  made  him  the  godfather  to  seventy-two 
towns,  and  from  one  of  the  earliest  —  a  Massa 
chusetts  town  —  came  in  1784  the  announcement 
that  it  had  taken  the  name  of  Franklin  and  the 
suggestion  that  he  present  it  with  a  church  bell. 
Franklin  replied  that,  "sense  being  preferable  to 
sound,"  he  would  give  them  a  town  library  instead, 
and  so  he  sent  them  sixty -eight  works  "such  as  are 
most  proper  to  inculcate  the  principles  of  sound 
religion  and  just  government."  In  this  same  little 
town  of  Franklin,  Massachusetts,  there  was  born 
a  dozen  years  later  a  boy  by  the  name  of  Horace 
Mann.  He  was  educated,  as  he  says  himself,  in 
"the  smallest  school  in  the  poorest  schoolhouse 


FRANKLIN  AND  PRACTICAL  EDUCATION  69 

with  the  cheapest  teachers  in  the  State,"  but  he 
had  access  to  one  avenue  leading  to  the  world  of 
letters,  the  library  that  Franklin  had  given  to  the 
town  in  lieu  of  a  bell.  Horace  Mann,  thus  rescued 
from  ignorance,  became  in  time  the  promoter  of 
the  American  public  school  for  Massachusetts  and 
for  the  nation.  He  used  to  say  that  he  would  like 
to  scatter  libraries  broadcast  over  the  land  as  a 
farmer  sows  his  wheat,  and  this  dream  of  his  has 
been  realized  today  by  Andrew  Carnegie. 

Franklin's  plans  for  an  Academy  at  Philadelphia 
are  contained  in  the  Proposals  Relating  to  the  Edu 
cation  of  Youth  in  Pensilvania  which  he  drew  up  in 
1749  and  later  printed  in  pamphlet  form.  This 
aged  and  neglected  document  reads  like  the  pros 
pectus  of  some  "modern  school"  desired  by  Charles 
W.  Eliot  and  Abraham  Flexner,  or  one  of  the 
"schools  of  tomorrow"  described  by  John  Dewey. 
It  is  based  upon  a  psychology  of  learning  whose 
principles  have  only  recently  come  into  recognition 
-  that  learning  comes  by  doing,  that  the  concrete 
should  precede  the  abstract,  that  individual  abili 
ties  and  vocational  aims  should  be  early  recognized, 
and  that  the  time  to  take  up  a  particular  study  is 
when  the  desire  for  it  has  been  awakened. 

History,  for  instance,  which  occupies  a  large 


70     AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

place  in  Franklin's  scheme,  he  would  have  taught 
by  the  extensive  reading  of  translations  of  the 
Greek  and  Roman  historians,  with  the  use  of  maps 
and  prints  of  medals  and  monuments,  "followed 
by  the  best  modern  histories,  particularly  of  our 
mother  country,  then  of  these  colonies."  It  is 
universal  and  comparative  history  that  he  wants, 
with  special  reference  to  customs,  politics,  religion, 
natural  resources,  commerce,  and  the  growth  of 
science.  History,  thus  properly  taught,  would 
naturally  lead  to  the  study  of  ethics,  logic,  physics, 
oratory,  debating,  and  journalism.  A  few  passages 
will  show  what  Franklin  had  in  mind: 

History  will  show  the  wonderful  effects  of  oratory  in 
governing,  turning  and  leading  great  bodies  of  man 
kind,  armies,  cities,  nations.  When  the  minds  of 
youth  are  struck  with  admiration  at  this,  then  is  the 
time  to  give  them  the  principles  of  that  art,  which  they 
will  study  with  taste  and  application.  Then  they  may 
be  made  acquainted  with  the  best  models  among  the 
ancients,  their  beauties  being  particularly  pointed  out 
to  them.  Modern  political  oratory  being  chiefly  per 
formed  by  pen  and  press,  its  advantages  over  the  an 
cients  in  some  respects  are  to  be  shown;  as  that  its 
effects  are  more  extensive,  more  lasting,  etc.  .  .  . 

On  historical  occasions,  questions  of  right  and  wrong, 
justice  and  injustice,  will  naturally  arise,  and  may  be 
put  to  youth,  which  they  may  debate  in  conversation 


FRANKLIN  AND  PRACTICAL  EDUCATION  71 

and  in  writing.  When  they  ardently  desire  victory,  for 
the  sake  of  the  praise  attending  it,  they  will  begin  to  feel 
the  want,  and  be  sensible  of  the  use  of  logic,  or  the  art  of 
reasoning  to  discover  truth,  and  of  arguing  to  defend  it, 
and  convince  adversaries.  This  would  be  the  time  to  ac 
quaint  them  with  the  principles  of  that  art.  .  .  . 

The  history  of  commerce,  of  the  invention  of  arts, 
rise  of  manufacture,  progress  of  trade,  change  of  its 
seats,  with  the  reasons,  causes,  etc.,  may  also  be  made 
entertaining  to  youth  and  will  be  useful  to  all.  And 
this,  with  the  accounts  in  other  history  of  the  prodi 
gious  force  and  effect  of  engines  and  machines  used  in 
war  will  naturally  introduce  a  desire  to  be  instructed  in 
mechanics  and  to  be  informed  of  the  principles  of  that 
art  by  which  weak  men  perform  such  wonders,  labor 
is  saved,  manufactures  expedited,  etc.  This  will  be  the 
time  to  show  them  prints  of  ancient  and  modern  ma 
chines,  to  explain  them  and  let  them  be  copied,  and  to 
give  lectures  in  mechanical  philosophy. 

Certain  words  have  been  italicized  in  the  passage 
just  quoted  to  show  how  clearly  Franklin  had  con 
ceived  of  the  Herbartian  principle  of  the  necessity 
of  an  " apperceptive  basis"  for  the  reception  of 
knowledge  nearly  a  hundred  years  before  Herbart 
became  known,  and  also  that  he  advocated  the 
"case-method"  of  teaching  ethics  now  brought 
forward  as  a  novelty. 

All  intended  for  divinity  should  be  taught  the  Latin 
and  Greek;  for  physic  [medical  students]  the  Latin, 


72     AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

Greek  and  French;  for  law,  the  Latin  and  French; 
merchants,  the  French,  German  and  Spanish;  and 
though  all  should  not  be  compelled  to  learn  Latin, 
Greek  or  the  modern  foreign  languages,  yet  none  that 
have  an  ardent  desire  to  learn  them  should  be  refused ; 
their  English,  arithmetic  and  other  studies  absolutely 
necessary,  being  at  the  same  time  not  neglected. 


Franklin  had  acquired  by  his  own  exertions  a  prac 
tical  acquaintance  with  French,  Spanish,  and  Ital 
ian,  and  then  had  found  Latin  easier  than  he  ex 
pected.  From  this  experience  he  came  to  the  con 
clusion  that  it  would  be  better  for  any  student  to 
begin  with  the  modern  languages  and  then  proceed 
to  the  ancient.  If  circumstances  then  prevented 
him  from  studying  the  ancient,  he  would  be  sure 
at  least  of  having  the  more  useful  modern  lan 
guages.  Franklin  pointed  out  that  Latin  and 
Greek  were  put  into  the  European  schools  for  utili 
tarian  purposes,  because  all  the  science,  law,  and 
theology  of  an  earlier  day  were  to  be  obtained  only 
in  these  languages,  but,  he  said,  they  have  be 
come  "the  chapeau  bras  of  modern  literature" 
—  the  fashionable  hat  of  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury,  once  useful  but  now  degenerated  to  a  mere 
honorific  appendage. 

4s   Franklin   attempted   nothing   less   than   a 


FRANKLIN  AND  PRACTICAL  EDUCATION  73 

change  of  the  center  of  gravity  from  Latin  to  Eng 
lish,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  such  heretical 
ideas  failed  of  acceptance  by  his  generation.  He 
got  the  money  for  his  projected  Academy,  with 
English  nominally  recognized  as  a  language  equal 
to  Latin,  but,  as  has  so  often  happened,  the  "mod 
ern  side"  was  starved  out  while  the  Latin  school 
was  fostered  in  spite  of  Franklin's  protest  against 
such  a  misapplication  of  funds. 

The  institution  thus  started,  however,  developed 
into  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  of  which 
Franklin  was  for  forty  years  a  trustee  and  which 
he  could  now  commend  for  carrying  out  many  of 
his  ideas.  The  University  of  Pennsylvania  was 
from  the  start  free  from  the  sectarian  influences 
which  prevailed  in  other  colleges.  Here  was  opened 
in  1765  the  first  school  of  medicine  in  America. 
History,  politics,  and  economics,  which  formed 
the  core  of  Franklin's  scheme  of  education,  have 
always  been  especially  prominent  in  this  institution. 

At  the  same  time  that  Franklin  was  urging  the 
establishment  of  an  Academy  he  launched  another 
movement  of  almost  equal  importance.  His  Pro 
posal  for  Promoting  Useful  Knowledge  Among  the 
British  Plantations  in  America,  published  in  1743, 
called  for  a  society  to  be  formed  "of  virtuosi  or 


74     AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

ingenious  men  residing  in  the  several  colonies,"  cor 
responding  to,  and  to  correspond  with,  the  Royal 
Society  of  London  and  the  Dublin  Society.  This 
proposal  resulted  in  the  formation  of  the  American 
Philosophical  Society,  of  which  Franklin  was  presi 
dent  until  his  death  in  1790.  In  the  Transactions 
of  this  Society  many  of  the  chief  American  contri 
butions  to  science  have  appeared.  Here  are  to  be 
found  Franklin's  paper  on  The  Cause  and  Cure  of 
Smoky  Chimneys,  in  which  he  anticipates  the 
modern  system  of  ventilation  and  house-heating; 
Priestley's  Experiments  and  Observations  on  differ 
ent  kinds  of  Air,  for  the  English  discoverer  of  oxy 
gen  had  been  mobbed  out  of  Birmingham  and  had 
taken  refuge  in  America,  where  he  aided  Franklin 
and  Jefferson  in  their  educational  reforms;  the  re 
searches  of  Draper  on  the  composition  of  the  sun; 
Joseph  Henry's  experiments  on  electro-magnetic 
induction;  and  the  paleontological  investigations  of 
Leidy,  Cope,  and  Hay  den. 

An  institution,  says  Emerson,  is  but  the  length 
ened  shadow  of  a  great  man,  and  there  is  not 
space  enough  here  to  do  more  than  refer  to  some  of 
the  shadows  of  this  sort  which  Franklin  cast.  The 
excellent  manual  training  schools  of  Philadelphia; 
Girard  College,  founded  through  the  bequest  of 


FRANKLIN  AND  PRACTICAL  EDUCATION  75 

$2,000,000  by  Stephen  Girard  in  1830  to  give  a 
practical,  moral,  and  patriotic  education  to  or 
phans;  the  Franklin  Institute,  founded  in  1824  for 
the  promotion  of  mechanic  arts;  the  so-called  Ger 
man  College  of  Lancaster,  Pennsylvania,  to  which 
Franklin  was  the  chief  contributor  and  which  was 
later  named  after  him  —  these  are  but  some  of 
the  educational  establishments  that  he  instigated 
or  inspired. 

One  other  scheme  of  Franklin's  deserves  atten 
tion,  partly  because  it  is  characteristic  of  the  man, 
and  partly  because  of  its  economic  interest.  His 
bequest  of  £1000  to  Boston  and  Philadelphia,  to  be 
lent  out  in  small  amounts  at  five  per  cent  to  young 
married  artificers  for  the  purpose  of  setting  them 
up  in  business,  would,  he  calculated,  amount  to 
£131,000  by  the  end  of  a  century.  He  would  then 
have  £100,000  spent  on  objects  of  public  utility 
and  the  remaining  £31,000  again  put  out  at  interest 
for  another  hundred  years,  by  the  end  of  which 
time  it  would  provide  £4,061,000  to  be  spent  by 
the  city  and  State.  Franklin  seems  to  have  also 
had  the  secondary  object  of  illustrating  how  rapid 
ly  money  breeds  but,  as  it  turned  out,  the  bequest 
illustrated  rather  the  futility  of  attempting  to  an 
ticipate  in  detail  the  needs  of  the  distant  future. 


76      AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

The  number  of  married  artificers  under  twenty- 
five  who  wanted  to  borrow  from  $65  to  $300  "for 
setting  up  their  business"  fell  off  in  the  course  of 
years  until,  in  1890,  the  Philadelphia  fund  reached 
only  $86,280  instead  of  the  $655,000  which  Frank 
lin  had  calculated.  Of  the  Boston  fund,  after 
passing  through  the  inevitable  period  of  litigation, 
$400,000  was  available  in  1908.  This  amount  was 
doubled  by  Andrew  Carnegie,  and  with  it  there 
was  erected  the  Franklin  Union  for  evening  courses 
in  industrial  education. 

Franklin's  best  work  as  an  educator  of  the  Ameri 
can  people  was,  after  all,  not  accomplished  through 
these  various  institutions  but  directly  through  the 
medium  of  his  pamphlets,  newspapers,  and  al 
manacs.  Poor  Richard's  Almanack  was  the  only 
book  in  thousands  of  homesteads,  and  his  prover 
bial  philosophy  became  the  common  coin  of  con 
versation  from  which  his  image  and  superscription 
have  long  been  obliterated  through  constant  usage. 
Father  Abraham's  speech  at  the  vendue  on  how  to 
remedy  hard  times,  a  medley  of  Poor  Richard's 
sayings,  has  been  translated  into  all  languages  and 
reprinted  four  hundred  times. 

Franklin  was  as  much  of  an  economist  as  a  man 
could  be  before  the  science  of  economics  was  born^ 


FRANKLIN  AND  PRACTICAL  EDUCATION  77 

He  anticipated  Malthus  in  the  law  of  the  relation 
of  population  to  sustenance  and  Adam  Smith  in 
the  measure  of  value  by  the  labor  involved.  Frank 
lin's  experimental  proof  of  the  similar  nature  of 
lightning  and  the  Leyden  spark  was  a  scientific 
discovery  of  the  first  order,  and  his  "one-fluid" 
theory  of  electricity,  his  conception  of  positive  and 
negative  electrification,  has  not  only  served  as  a 
useful  hypothesis  ever  since  but  is  strikingly  in 
keeping  with  the  modern  electron  theory.  But 
Franklin  himself  did  not  get  so  much  gratification 
out  of  such  contributions  to  science  as  he  did  from 
the  thought  that  he  had  taught  some  millions  of 
people  such  homely  truths  as  these: 

He  that  goes  a-borrowing  goes  a-sorrowing. 

Experience  keeps  a  dear  school,  but  fools  will  learn  at 
no  other. 

It  is  hard  for  an  empty  sack  to  stand  upright. 

He  who  by  the  plow  would  thrive 
Himself  must  either  hold  or  drive. 


CHAPTER  VI 

JEFFERSON   AND   STATE   EDUCATION 

A  system  of  education  which  shall  reach  every  description  of 
citizen  from  the  richest  to  the  poorest,  as  it  was  the  earliest,  so 
will  it  be  the  latest  of  all  public  concerns  in  which  I  shall  permit 
myself  to  take  an  interest.  Nor  am  I  tenacious  of  the  form  in 
which  it  shall  be  introduced.  —  Thomas  Jefferson  (1817). 

THE  founders  of  the  Republic  were  men  of  long 
stride,  and  the  United  States  has  found  it  hard  to 
keep  up  the  pace  they  set.  Certain  phrases  that 
Jefferson  put  into  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
as  too  obvious  to  need  argument  still  arouse  ad 
miration  or  despair  when  Americans  listen  to  the 
reading  of  their  political  creed  on  the  Fourth  of 
July.  What  Jefferson  actually  accomplished  in 
education  was  little;  but  what  he  aspired  to  and 
inspired  others  to  was  immense.  The  appraisal  of 
his  achievement  depends  upon  whether  the  balance- 
sheet  is  drawn  during  his  life  or  a  hundred  years 
later.  In  an  aristocratic  environment  he  cher 
ished  a  democratic  ideal,  and  he  converted  to  the 

78 


JEFFERSON  AND  STATE  EDUCATION    79 

principle  of  free  schools  and  state  support  a  people 
who  had  been  committed  to  restricted  education 
and  individual  responsibility. 

Jefferson  said  that  he  was  not  "tenacious  of  the 
form"  in  which  his  idea  of  universal  education 
should  be  introduced  —  and,  indeed,  the  realiza 
tion  of  his  project  came  about  in  a  way  very  differ 
ent  from  his  plan  and  much  later  than  he  had 
hoped.  His  native  State  was  slow  to  follow  his 
leadership.  It  was  not  until  1870  that  a  public 
school  system  was  established  in  Virginia,  and  even 
at  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century  60  per 
cent  of  the  children  were  not  in  the  schools. 

The  power  of  a  personality,  like  the  strength  of 
an  electric  current,  may  be  measured  by  the  resist 
ance  it  can  overcome.  An  appreciation  of  Jeffer 
son's  achievement  involves  a  brief  review  of  the 
earlier  history  of  education  in  Virginia  which  had 
a  very  different  beginning  from  New  England. 
The  Mayflower  in  1620  brought  to  the  New  World 
53  men,  21  women,  and  28  children.  The  three 
ships  coming  to  Virginia  in  1609  contained  100 
"settlers,"  among  whom  there  were  55  gentlemen 
and  12  servants,  but  no  children.  Ten  years  later, 
when  it  occurred  to  the  London  Company  of  Vir 
ginia  that  children  were  desirable  in  a  colony,  they 


80     AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

shipped  over  a  batch  of  one  hundred  assorted 
"orphants"  to  be  apprenticed  to  the  planters  on 
condition  that  they  be  taught  some  useful  trade 
and  the  Christian  religion.  This  was  the  origin 
of  that  apprentice  system  which,  in  Virginia  and 
other  colonies,  was  the  first  form  of  compulsory 
education  for  poor  children. 

Later  in  the  seventeenth  century  some  "free" 
schools  were  established  by  bequests  from  philan 
thropic  persons.  Among  these  may  be  mentioned 
the  Symms  School,  which  received  from  its  founder 
two  hundred  acres  of  land  and  an  endowment  of 
the  calves  and  milk  of  eight  cows.  The  Eaton 
Free  School  was  more  wealthy.  It  possessed  five 
hundred  acres  of  land,  stocked  with  "two  negroes, 
twelve  cows,  two  bulls,  and  twenty  hogs." 

But  such  efforts  at  the  extension  of  education 
among  the  lower  classes  did  not  meet  with  much 
encouragement  from  the  wealthier  colonists.  The 
planters  employed  private  tutors  or  engaged  the 
leisure  of  Church  of  England  clergymen  but  did 
not  think  it  wise  to  educate  the  poorer  people  above 
their  proper  station.  The  Lords  Commissioners  of 
Trades  and  Plantations  inquired,  in  1671:  "What 
course  is  taken  about  instructing  the  people  within 
your  government  in  the  Christian  religion  and 


JEFFERSON  AND  STATE  EDUCATION    81 

what  provision  is  there  for  the  paying  of  your  min 
istry?"  Governor  Berkeley  answered:  "The  same 
course  that  is  taken  in  England  out  of  towns;  every 
man  according  to  his  ability  instructing  his  chil 
dren.  We  have  forty-eight  parishes  and  our  minis 
ters  are  well  paid  and  by  my  consent  should  be 
better  if  they  would  pray  oftener  and  preach  less. 
.  .  .  But,  I  thank  God,  there  are  no  free  schools 
nor  printing,  and  I  hope  we  shall  not  have  these 
hundred  years,  for  learning  has  brought  disobe 
dience  and  heresy  and  sects  into  the  world,  and 
printing  has  divulged  them  and  libels  against  the 
best  government.  God  keep  us  from  both ! " 

The  early  efforts  to  start  higher  education  in 
Virginia  met  with  even  more  emphatic  opposition. 
The  London  Company  in  1619  granted  a  thousand 
acres  of  land  at  Henrico  on  the  James  River  for  a 
college  for  the  Indians  and  nine  thousand  acres  for 
a  college  for  the  English.  The  bishops  of  England 
raised  $35,000  in  money  and  obtained  many  gifts 
of  books  and  plate.  George  Thorpe  of  the  King's 
Privy  Chamber,  a  gentleman  "learned  in  scholar 
ship  and  zealous  in  piety,"  was  chosen  as  head  of 
the  university,  but  the  Indians  soon  put  an  end  to 
the  ambitious  enterprise  by  scalping  him  and  six 
teen  of  his  tenants.  As  a  result  it  was  felt  that  the 


82      AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

Indians  were  not  yet  ripe  for  higher  education,  and 
when  another  movement  was  projected  in  1624  to 
establish  a  university  it  was  to  be  confined  to  the 
whites  and  located  upon  an  island  in  the  Susque- 
hanna  River.  Though  Edwin  Palmer  of  London 
drew  up  a  fine  plan  for  the  grounds  and  buildings 
of  the  Academia  Virginiensis  et  Oxoniensis  and 
gave  all  his  lands  in  America  for  the  project, 
nothing  came  of  this  second  attempt  at  colonial 
education  in  the  South. 

In  1660  the  Assembly  of  Virginia  showed  its 
realization  of  the  need  of  higher  education  at  least 
for  the  ministry  by  passing  the  following  law: 

Whereas  the  want  of  able  and  faithful  ministers  in  this 
country  deprives  us  of  these  great  blessings  and  mercies 
that  allwaies  attend  upon  the  service  of  God  which  want 
by  reason  of  our  great  distance  from  our  native  country 
cannot  in  probability  be  allwaies  supply ed  from  thence, 
Bee  itt  enacted  that  for  the  advance  of  learning,  educa 
tion  of  youth,  supply  of  the  ministry,  and  promotion 
of  piety  there  be  land  taken  upon  purchases  for  a  col- 
ledge  and  freeschoole  and  that  there  be  with  as  much 
speede  as  may  be  convenient  houseing  erected  thereon 
for  entertainment  of  students  and  schollers. 

The  Assembly  having  thus  approved  of  the  pro 
ject,  contributions  were  called  for,  and  the  Bur 
gesses  and  government  officials,  including  even 


JEFFERSON  AND  STATE  EDUCATION    83 

Governor  Berkeley,  "severally  subscribed  severall 
considerable  sumes  of  money  and  quantityes  of 
tobacco."  But  these  donations  were  to  be  paid  in 
only  after  the  college  had  been  started,  and  it  was 
then  discovered  —  what  solicitors  of  college  funds 
have  often  noted  since  —  that  "the  subscribed 
money  did  not  come  in  with  the  same  readiness 
with  which  it  had  been  underwritten."  For  thirty 
years  the  project  languished,  but  in  1691  an  ener 
getic  young  Scotch  clergyman,  the  Reverend 
James  Blair,  took  it  in  hand  and  went  back  to  Eng 
land  to  get  the  necessary  money.  Tactfully  plan 
ning  his  campaign,  he  went  first  to  the  bishops, 
then  to  the  Queen,  next  to  the  King,  and  finally 
to  the  Attorney-General.  Their  Majesties,  learn 
ing  that  a  college  in  Virginia  had  been  named  after 
them,  willingly  agreed  to  contribute  to  its  building 
two  thousand  pounds  out  of  the  quitrents  of  Vir 
ginia.  But  when  Attorney-General  Seymour  was 
approached,  he  declared  that  the  Government 
could  not  afford  such  expenditures  until  after  the 
war.  Blair  explained  that  the  purpose  of  the  col 
lege  as  expressed  in  an  act  of  the  Virginia  Assembly 
was  to  educate  young  men  for  the  ministry  and 
observed  that  Virginians  had  souls  to  be  saved  as 
well  as  Englishmen  at  home.  Seymour  did  not  see 


84      AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

the  necessity.  "Souls!"  he  exclaimed.  "Damn 
your  souls !  Make  tobacco ! ' ' z 

But  Blair  persisted  and  not  only  got  the  royal 
grant  but  valuable  donations  from  other  sources, 
including  —  since  he  had  no  qualms  about  tainted 
money— three  hundred  pounds  from  pirates. 
Besides  these  endowments  the  College  of  William 
and  Mary  received  twenty  thousand  acres  of  land, 
an  export  tax  on  tobacco  of  a  penny  a  pound,  and  a 
monopoly  of  the  land  office  business.  Some  years 
after  the  founding  of  the  institution,  taxes  for  the 
benefit  of  the  College  of  William  and  Mary  were 
imposed  upon  two  other  luxuries,  liquors  and  furs. 

So  founded,  the  College  of  William  and  Mary, 
chartered  in  1693,  was  second  only  to  Harvard  in 
seniority  and  in  its  first  century  was  not  behind  its 
New  England  rival  in  usefulness  if  tested,  as  a 
college  should  be  tested,  by  the  quality  of  the  men 
it  turned  out.  To  this  "  Alma  Mater  of  statesmen, * 
as  it  came  to  be  called,  belongs  the  honor  of  having 
trained  three  Presidents  of  the  United  States, 
Thomas  Jefferson,  James  Monroe,  and  John  Tyler, 
also  Peyton  Randolph,  the  president  of  the  Con 
tinental  Congress,  and  John  Marshall  the  great 

TThis  is  one  of  the  stories  which  Franklin  loved  to  tell.  Set* 
Sparks's  Works  of  Benjamin  Franklin,  vol.  x,  p.  111. 


JEFFERSON  AND  STATE  EDUCATION    85 

interpreter  of  the  Constitution,  as  well  as  governors 
and  senators  of  Virginia  too  numerous  to  mention. 
In  1779,  when  Jefferson  was  on  the  Board  of  Trus 
tees,  the  College  was  made  into  a  university,  and 
such  innovations  in  American  education  as  lecture 
courses  on  political  economy  and  on  municipal, 
constitutional,  and  international  law  were  intro 
duced  and  made  elective.  Here,  too,  was  started, 
in  the  year  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
the  patriotic  and  literary  society  known  as  Phi 
Beta  Kappa,  the  first  of  the  host  of  Greek-letter 
intercollegiate  fraternities  now  flourishing. 

The  College  of  William  and  Mary  was  the  child 
of  Church  and  State.  Until  after  the  Revolution 
the  Bishop  of  London  was  its  Chancellor  and  his 
commissary  or  deputy  in  Virginia  its  President. 
The  Reverend  James  Blair,  its  indefatigable  pro 
moter,  served  as  President  for  its  first  half  century. 
The  college  was  represented  in  the  Virginia  House 
of  Burgesses  by  a  member  elected  by  the  faculty, 
a  system  that  still  survives  in  England  where  the 
universities  are  represented  in  the  House  of  Com 
mons.  But  when  the  capital  was  removed  from 
Williamsburg,  the  seat  of  the  college,  to  Richmond 
in  1779,  the  close  connection  of  William  and  Mary 
with  the  political  life  of  the  State  was  broken;  and 


86     AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

when  Jefferson  established  the  University  of  Vir 
ginia  in  1819,  the  older  institution  received  a  blow 
from  which  it  never  fully  recovered.  Williamsburg 
was  a  storm  center  in  two  wars  in  both  of  which 
the  college  suffered.  Its  buildings  were  burned 
while  occupied  by  the  French  troops  at  the  siege 
of  Yorktown  in  1781,  and  while  occupied  by  the 
Federal  troops  in  1862.  For  seven  years  in  the 
eighties  the  College  of  William  and  Mary  was 
closed,  but  it  has  survived  all  vicissitudes. 

Such  was  Jefferson's  point  of  departure  in  de 
veloping  his  plan  of  public  education  which  has 
since  then  become  characteristically  American. 
William  and  Mary  was  a  colonial  Oxford,  under 
the  control  of  the  Established  Church  and  founded 
primarily  for  the  education  of  its  clergy.  Jefferson 
broke  with  the  traditional  idea  of  a  university 
when  he  asked  Virginia  to  establish  a  free  and  secu 
lar  university,  supported  and  controlled  by  the 
State.  A  committee  headed  by  Jefferson  met  in 
the  tavern  at  Rockfish  Gap  in  the  Blue  Ridge 
Mountains  on  August  1,  1818,  to  draw  up  a  plan 
for  the  "Central  College"  of  Virginia  and  followed 
closely  the  idea  which  Jefferson  had  vainly  urged 
seventeen  years  before  and  which  since  has  been 
carried  out  in  almost  every  State  in  the  Union. 


JEFFERSON  AND  STATE  EDUCATION    87 

According  to  this  plan  each  locality  should  main 
tain  its  own  elementary  schools  for  the  education 
of  every  boy  and  girl.  Secondary  education  should 
be  given  in  various  parts  of  the  State  in  academies 
and  colleges  supported  by  the  State  or  by  tuition 
fees.  This  mixed  system  of  public  high  schools 
and  private  schools  and  endowed  colleges  has 
served  very  satisfactorily  to  reconcile  the  demand 
for  different  kinds  of  training.  At  the  top  there 
was  to  be  a  State  University  in  which  was  to  be 
given  the  most  advanced  instruction  in  all  branches 
of  knowledge.  This  institution  was  to  be  situated 
in  "an  academical  village,"  in  buildings  connected 
by  corridors  and  surrounding  a  lawn.  Jefferson's 
architectural  plan  for  the  University  of  Virginia 
involved  the  employment  of  two  Italian  sculptors 
to  cut  the  capitals  for  the  columns  in  classical  forms. 
The  studies  of  the  university  were  divided, 
according  to  the  decimal  fashion  of  the  day,  into 
ten  groups  "each  of  which  are  within  the  power  of 
a  single  professor,"  as  the  Rockfish  Gap  commis 
sion  said,  though  they  evidently  either  overesti 
mated  the  power  of  a  professor  or  underestimated 
the  future  expansion  of  the  subjects.  The  ten 
groups  were:  (1)  Ancient  Languages;  (2)  Modern 
Languages,  including  French,  Spanish,  Italian, 


88     AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

German,  and  Anglo-Saxon;  (3)  Mathematics;  (4) 
Phy sico-mathematics ;  (5)  Physics,  including  chem 
istry  and  mineralogy;  (6)  Botany  and  Zool 
ogy*  (7)  Anatomy  and  Medicine;  (8)  Government, 
Political  Economy,  and  History;  (9)  Municipal 
Law;  (10)  Ideology,  including  rhetoric,  ethics, 
belles-lettres  and  fine  arts. 

This  curious  curriculum  shows  the  hand  of 
Jefferson  in  both  its  inclusions  and  omissions. 
Anglo-Saxon  was  put  among  the  modern  languages 
because  Jefferson  held  that  its  study  would  "re 
cruit  and  renovate  the  vigor  of  the  English  lan 
guage,  too  much  impaired  by  the  neglect  of  its 
ancient  constitution  and  dialects."  He  argued  that 
the  adoption  of  phonetic  spelling  would  restore  the 
historic  continuity  of  the  language  now  obscured 
by  the  accidents  of  the  conventional  spelling. x 

Under  "Ideology,"  a  term  introduced  by  Count 
Destutt  de  Tracy  of  the  French  Institute,  Jeffer 
son  hoped  for  the  development  of  a  new  philosophy 
free  from  the  theological  and  metaphysical  postu 
lates  of  the  old  and  leading  toward  a  democratic 
instead  of  a  monarchical  ideal  of  society.  This 


1  See  Jefferson's  Essay  toward  facilitating  instruction  in  Anglo- 
Saxon  and  Modern  Dialects  of  the  English  Language  for  the  use  of 
the  University  of  Virginia. 


JEFFERSON  AND  STATE  EDUCATION    89 

ideal  of  Jefferson's  has  not  yet  been  realized,  al 
though  we  may  discern  an  approach  toward  it  in 
the  pragmatism  of  William  James  and  John  Dewey, 
hotly  opposed  in  the  monarchical  countries  of 
Europe  because  of  its  democratic  implications. 

The  prominent  place  given  to  science  in  the 
Jeffersonian  scheme  was  another  novelty  and  ex 
cited  popular  hostility,  particularly  when  Thomas 
Cooper,  the  first  professor  of  chemistry  chosen  for 
the  new  university,  was  —  not  without  reason  — 
suspected  of  Unitarianism.  The  opposition  to 
Cooper  was  indeed  so  strong  that  the  call  had  to 
be  canceled.  * 

The  unprecedented  omission  of  the  dominant 
department  in  the  older  universities,  the  theologi 
cal,  was  thus  explained  by  the  Commission:  "We 
have  proposed  no  professor  of  Divinity.  This 
will  be  within  the  province  of  the  professor  of 
Ethics.  We  have  thought  it  proper  at  this  point 
to  leave  any  sects  to  provide  as  they  think  fittest 
the  means  of  further  instruction  in  their  own  pe 
culiar  tenets."  This  very  sensible  solution  of  the 

1  Jefferson's  difficulties  in  getting  a  faculty  for  his  university 
are  told  in  lively  fashion  by  W.  P.  Trent  in  a  paper  on  English 
Culture  in  Virginia,  in  the  Johns  Hopkins  Studies  (1889).  See 
also  Herbert  B.  Adams's  Thomas  Jefferson  and  the  University  of 
Virginia,  published  by  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Education  (1888). 


90     AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

denominational  difficulty  has  not  yet  been  carried 
out  as  fully  as  it  might  be.  What  Jefferson  hoped 
for  may  be  seen  from  a  letter  of  his  to  Thomas 
Cooper:  "I  think  the  invitation  will  be  accepted 
by  some  sects  from  candid  intentions,  and  by 
others  from  jealousy  and  rivalship.  And  by  bring 
ing  the  rival  sects  together  and  mixing  them  with 
the  mass  of  other  students,  we  shall  soften  their 
asperities,  liberalize  and  neutralize  their  prejudices, 
and  make  the  general  religion  a  religion  of  peace, 
reason,  and  morality." 

But  for  the  greater  part  of  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury  "the  rival  sects"  preferred  to  keep  up  a  fight 
on  the  State  Universities  as  "godless  institutions," 
rather  than  attempt  to  supplement  their  deficien 
cies  as  Jefferson  had  suggested.  Recently,  however, 
some  denominations  have  established  residential 
halls  or  theological  seminaries  near  to  the  State 
Universities  and,  by  means  of  church  clubs  and 
student  pastors,  have  sought  to  foster  religious 
activities  and  study  among  the  students. 

Thomas  Jefferson  was  chosen  as  the  first  Rector 
of  the  University  of  Virginia  and  held  that  position 
until  his  death  in  1826.  Many  of  the  innovations 
that  he  introduced  or  encouraged  at  William  and 
Mary  or  at  the  University  of  Virginia  have  been 


JEFFERSON  AND  STATE  EDUCATION    91 

widely  adopted  and  now  form  part  of  the  spirit  of 
American  education.  To  those  already  mentioned 
should  be  added  the  elective  system  and  vocational 
specialization,  for  it  was  Jefferson's  idea  that  the 
students  should  have  "uncontrolled  choice  in  the 
lectures  they  shall  choose  to  attend,  and  give  ex 
clusive  application  to  those  branches  only  which 
are  to  qualify  them  for  the  particular  vocations  to 
which  they  are  destined."  The  elective  system, 
carried  perhaps  by  George  Ticknor  to  Harvard,1 
was  extended  under  President  Eliot's  adminis 
tration  to  all  studies  and  has  been  in  some  degree 
adopted  by  all  American  universities  and  by  most 
colleges.  Along  with  this  principle  of  freedom  of 
learning  and  teaching,  Jefferson  also  followed  the 
German  universities  in  their  system  of  rotation  in 
office.  According  to  his  plan  the  chief  executive 
was  elected  annually  from  among  the  members  of 
the  faculty.  But  in  this  respect  since  his  day  the 
tide  has  set  in  the  other  direction,  and  as  the  uni 
versities  have  become  more  extensive  and  complex 
their  administration  has  become  less  democratic. 
As  it  more  clearly  appeared  that  a  university 
gained  in  numbers,  wealth,  and  renown  when  it 

1  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Education,  Circular  of  Information,  No.  1. 
1888,  p.  127. 


92     AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

was  under  the  leadership  of  a  powerful  personality, 
the  tendency  has  been  to  concentrate  the  control 
in  the  hands  of  its  president.  Finally  even  the 
University  of  Virginia  succumbed  and,  with  a  per 
manent  president,  has  prospered  unprecedentedly. 

Jefferson  desired  to  apply  to  the  university  the 
same  theory  that  he  advocated  for  the  State  — 
that  the  best  government  is  the  least  government. 
He  wished  to  do  away  with  corporal  punishment, 
espionage,  and  "  useless  observances  which  mere 
ly  multiply  occasions  for  dissatisfaction,  disobe 
dience,  and  revolt."  After  Jefferson's  death,  how 
ever,  the  student  on  matriculating  had  to  sign  an 
eight-page  pamphlet  of  regulations  and  penalties. 
Small  wonder  that  the  consequent  "disobedience 
and  revolt''  took  the  form  of  riots,  in  one  of  which 
a  professor  was  shot. 

But  the  honor  system,  which  was  adopted  in 
1842  and  by  which  the  student's  signed  statement 
that  he  has  received  no  assistance  in  his  work  is 
accepted  without  question,  is  decidedly  Jefferso- 
nian.  It  has  been  quite  generally  adopted,  although 
it  is  not  everywhere  so  successful  as  it  is  in  insti 
tutions  like  Virginia  and  Princeton  which  have 
a  homogeneous  student  body  with  a  strong  and 
unified  public  sentiment. 


JEFFERSON  AND  STATE  EDUCATION    93 

Jefferson  did  not  wish  to  have  the  university 
confer  any  degrees,  titles,  or  honors.  A  simple  cer 
tificate  of  graduation  specifying  the  subject  to  which 
the  student  had  devoted  most  attention  would,  he 
believed,  answer  the  purpose.  But  here  his  country 
has  failed  to  follow  him.  Degrees  have  multiplied 
amazingly  and  the  ceremonies  of  conferring  them 
have  developed  an  academic  pomp  that  would 
shock  the  early  apostle  of  democratic  simplicity. 

But  no  man  can  hope  to  make  posterity  adopt 
all  his  ideas.  Jefferson  was  more  fortunate  than 
most  in  this  respect.  The  three  achievements  in 
which  he  took  most  pride  and  which  he  wished  to 
have  engraved  upon  his  tombstone  are  still  re 
garded  with  reverence  and  gratitude  by  all  Ameri 
cans.  Few  men  in  history  have  had  a  grander 
monument  than  the  unpretentious  stone  bearing 
the  legend: 

THOMAS  JEFFERSON 

AUTHOR 
OF  THE  DECLARATION  OF  AMERICAN  INDEPENDENCE 

OF 

THE   STATUTE   OF  VIRGINIA 

FOR   RELIGIOUS   FREEDOM,    AND 

FATHER   OF   THE   UNIVERSITY 

OF   VIRGINIA. 


CHAPTER  VII 

WASHINGTON   AND   NATIONAL   EDUCATION 

The  time  is  therefore  come  when  a  plan  of  universal  education 
ought  to  be  adopted  in  the  United  States.  —  George  Washington 
(1795}. 

IP  Jefferson,  the  father  of  the  party  of  State  Rights, 
was  content  when  he  had  founded  the  University 
of  Virginia,  it  is  clear  that  Washington,  the  leader 
of  the  Federalists,  wanted  nothing  less  than  a 
national  system  of  education.  The  dominant  mo 
tive  of  both  these  statesmen  was  the  same;  the 
difference  between  them  lay  in  the  scope  of  their 
ideas.  Jefferson  wanted  to  unify  the  mind  of  the 
individual  State;  Washington,  to  unify  the  mind 
of  the  whole  nation  by  educating  the  youth  to 
gether.  Both  feared  foreign  influences:  Washing 
ton,  the  evil  influence  of  education  in  monarchical 
England;  Jefferson,  the  evil  influence  of  New  Eng 
land  teachers  and  preachers.  Jefferson,  in  one  of 
his  pessimistic  moods,  wrote  to  Joseph  C.  Cabell 

04 


WASHINGTON  AND  EDUCATION        95 

that,  unless  Virginia  established  her  own  univer 
sity,  the  State  would  have  to  send  her  children 
to  Kentucky  or  to  Massachusetts.  If  they  went 
to  Kentucky,  they  would  stay  there.  If  they 
went  to  Massachusetts,  they  would  return  fanatics 
and  Tories. 

If,  however,  we  are  to  go  a-begging  any  where  for  our 
education  I  would  rather  it  should  be  to  Kentucky 
than  any  other  state  because  she  has  more  of  the 
flavor  of  the  old  cask  than  any  other.  All  the  states 
but  our  own  are  sensible  that  knowledge  is  power,  .  .  . 
while  we  are  sinking  into  the  barbarism  of  our  Indian 
aborigines  and  expect  like  them  to  oppose  by  igno 
rance  the  overwhelming  mass  of  light  and  science  by 
which  we  shall  be  surrounded.  It  is  a  comfort  I  am 
not  to  live  to  sec  this. 

Washington's  reasons  for  desiring  a  national  uni 
versity  where  youths  from  various  parts  of  the 
country  could  complete  their  education  in  common 
are  given  in  the  following  passage  from  his  last  will 
and  testament: 

It  has  always  been  a  source  of  serious  regret  with  me, 
to  see  the  youth  of  these  United  States  sent  to  foreign 
countries  for  the  purpose  of  education,  often  before 
their  minds  were  formed,  or  they  had  imbibed  any 
adequate  ideas  of  the  happiness  of  their  own;  contract 
ing  too  frequently,  not  only  habits  of  dissipation  and 
extravagance,  but  principles  unfriendly  to  republican 


96      AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

government,  and  to  the  true  and  genuine  liberties  of 
mankind,  which  thereafter  are  rarely  overcome;  for 
these  reasons  it  has  been  my  ardent  wish  to  see  a  plan 
devised  on  a  liberal  scale,  which  would  have  a  ten 
dency  to  spread  systematic  ideas  through  all  parts  of 
this  rising  empire,  thereby  to  do  away  local  attach 
ments  and  State  prejudices,  as  far  as  the  nature  of 
things  would,  or  indeed  ought  to  admit,  from  our  na 
tional  councils.  Looking  anxiously  forward  to  the 
accomplishment  of  so  desirable  an  object  as  this  is 
(in  my  estimation),  my  mind  has  not  been  able  to 
contemplate  any  plan  more  likely  to  effect  the  meas 
ure,  than  the  establishment  of  a  UNIVERSITY  in  a 
central  part  of  the  United  States,  to  which  the  youths 
of  fortune  and  talents  from  all  parts  thereof  may  be 
sent  for  the  completion  of  their  education,  in  all  the 
branches  of  polite  literature,  in  arts  and  sciences,  in 
acquiring  knowledge  in  the  principles  of  politics  and 
good  government,  and,  as  a  matter  of  infinite  impor 
tance  in  my  judgment,  by  associating  with  each  other, 
and  forming  friendships  in  juvenile  years,  be  enabled 
to  free  themselves  in  a  proper  degree  from  those  local 
prejudices  and  habitual  jealousies  which  have  just 
been  mentioned,  and  which,  when  carried  to  excess, 
are  never-failing  sources  of  disquietude  to  the  public 
mind,  and  pregnant  of  mischievous  consequences  to 
this  country. 

These  words  remind  one  of  the  will  of  that  later 
empire  builder,  Cecil  Rhodes,  who  left  a  legacy 
that  picked  young  men  from  Australia,  New  Zea 
land,  Canada,  South  Africa,  the  United  States, 


WASHINGTON  AND  EDUCATION        97 

and  Germany  might  be  educated  together  at  Ox 
ford  with  a  view  of  reducing  national  antagonisms 
and  local  prejudices. 

That  Washington  cherished  the  idea  even  before 
the  Revolutionary  War  is  proved  by  a  passage  in 
Samuel  Blodget's  Economica: 

As  the  most  minute  circumstances  are  sometimes  in 
structing  for  their  relation  to  great  events,  we  relate 
the  first  that  we  ever  heard  of  a  national  university: 
it  was  in  the  camp  at  Cambridge,  in  October,  1775, 
when  Major  William  Blodget  went  to  the  quarters  of 
General  Washington  to  complain  of  the  militia  quar 
tered  therein.  The  writer  of  this  being  in  company 
with  his  friend  and  relation,  and  hearing  General 
Greene  join  in  lamenting  the  then  ruinous  state  of  the 
eldest  seminary  of  Massachusetts  observed,  merely  to 
console  the  company  of  friends,  that  to  make  amends 
for  these  injuries,  after  our  war,  he  hoped  we  should 
erect  a  noble  national  university,  at  which  the  youth  of 
all  the  world  might  be  proud  to  receive  instructions. 
What  was  thus  pleasantly  said,  Washington  imme 
diately  replied  to,  with  that  inimitably  expressive  and 
truly  interesting  look  for  which  he  was  sometimes  so 
remarkable:  "  Young  man,  you  are  a  prophet!  inspired 
to  speak  what  I  am  confident  will  one  day  be  realized." 

Washington  then  detailed  his  plans  for  a  federal 
city  and  university  to  be  built  near  the  falls  of  the 
Potomac,  speaking  with  such  force  that  Blodget 
was  thoroughly  converted  and  subsequently  copy- 


98      AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

righted  his  Economica  for  the  "benefit  of  the  free 
education  fund  of  the  university  founded  by 
George  Washington  in  his  last  years."  This  fund 
began  with  about  $25,000  in  fifty  shares  in  the 
Potomac  River  Navigation  Company  which  Wash 
ington  bequeathed  to  the  Government  for  the  pur 
pose  of  founding  a  national  university.  These 
shares  had  been  given  to  Washington  by  Virginia, 
together  with  a  hundred  shares  in  the  James  River 
Company,  as  a  reward  for  his  services  in  the  Revo 
lutionary  War.  The  James  River  stock  he  gave 
to  Liberty  Hall  Academy,  a  school  in  Virginia 
established  by  the  Scotch-Irish  Presbyterians  be 
cause  the  College  of  William  and  Mary  was  too 
narrowly  Episcopalian.  Thus  aided,  Liberty  Hall 
Academy  developed  into  a  college  and  later  into  a 
university  which  took  the  name  of  its  benefactor. 
After  the  Civil  War  General  Robert  E.  Lee  became 
its  president,  and  since  his  death  the  institution 
has  been  known  as  Washington  and  Lee  University . 
But  although  Washington  showed  his  interest 
in  the  educational  institutions  of  his  native  State 
by  this  endowment  as  well  as  by  serving  as  chan 
cellor  of  his  Alma  Mater,  William  and  Mary,  from 
1788  until  his  death  in  1799,  he  never  relinquished 
his  belief  that  national  as  well  as  State  institutions 


WASHINGTON  AND  EDUCATION        99 

of  learning  were  needed.  In  his  first  speech  to 
Congress  on  January  8,  1790,  Washington  em 
phasized  education  as  a  national  duty  and  sug 
gested  a  university,  and  in  his  last  speech  to  Con 
gress  he  again  called  attention  to  the  need  of  a 
national  university  and  a  military  academy.  Part 
of  his  intention  has  been  satisfactorily  carried  out 
in  the  Military  Academy  at  West  Point  on  the 
Hudson  and  in  the  Naval  Academy  at  Annapolis 
on  Chesapeake  Bay.  Perhaps  because  Washing 
ton  had  been  untrained  in  military  science  when  he 
was  called  upon  to  lead  the  Continental  Army 
against  the  most  powerful  nation  in  the  world,  he 
fully  appreciated  the  value  of  such  training.  "  The 
art  of  war,"  he  declared,  "is  at  once  comprehen 
sive  and  complicated;  it  demands  much  previ 
ous  study,"  and  he  advocated  preparedness  by 
recommending  to  Congress  that  "however  pacific 
the  general  policy  of  a  nation  may  be,  it  ought 
never  to  be  without  an  adequate  stock  of  military 
knowledge  for  emergencies." 

The  Military  Academy  at  West  Point  was  defi 
nitely  opened  on  July  4, 1802,  by  President  Jeffer 
son  with  ten  cadets  present.  Since  then  it  has  been 
in  continuous  activity  with  the  exception  of  the 
war  year  of  1812.  It  has  furnished  the  regular 


100    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

army  with  most  of  its  officers  in  all  American  wars 
and  further  has  given  to  the  country  many  of  its 
leading  technicians  and  superintendents  of  public 
works,  for  it  was,  until  the  opening  of  the  Rensse- 
laer  Polytechnic  Institute  in  1825,  the  only  en 
gineering  school  in  the  United  States.  West  Point, 
during  most  of  its  existence,  has  received  young 
men  from  each  congressional  district,  and  this  dis 
tribution  of  students  has  made  the  American  army 
a  truly  national  and  popular  organization  and  has 
thus  achieved  one  of  the  aims  of  Washington's 
ideal  of  education.  When  the  United  States  en 
tered  the  Great  War  young  men  of  draft  age  who 
were  not  needed  for  immediate  service  were  placed 
at  Government  expense  in  the  universities  of  their 
choice  and  received  intensive  military  and  naval 
training  under  West  Point  officers,  supplemented 
by  lectures  on  the  causes  of  the  war  and  on  techni 
cal  subjects  by  instructors  from  the  regular  faculty. 
It  is  already  apparent  that  the  experience  gained 
from  this  Student  Army  Training  Corps  is  des 
tined  to  modify  American  educational  methods  in 
the  future. 

In  this  way  Washington's  desire  for  military 
education  has  been  realized.  The  other  part  of  his 
idea,  a  national  university,  came  near  being  carried 


WASHINGTON  AND  EDUCATION       101 

out  by  the  aid  of  Jefferson.  In  1794  t.here  ajrose  an 
opportunity  to  import  en  mews*  a  European  uni 
versity.  The  faculty  of  Geneva,  feeling '  uncom 
fortable  in  the  Swiss  Republic,  proposed  to  emi 
grate  in  a  body  to  the  United  States  if  a  place  could 
be  found  for  them.  John  Adams  and  Thomas 
Jefferson  were  much  taken  with  the  idea  and  urged 
it  upon  Washington  in  the  hope  of  getting  his  Poto 
mac  shares  for  that  purpose,  but  this  scheme  of 
wholesale  importation  did  not  fall  in  with  Wash 
ington's  notion.  He  preferred  to  pick  his  pro 
fessors  from  various  countries  —  for  instance,  a 
Scotchman  rather  than  a  Frenchman  for  philos 
ophy  —  instead  of  bringing  over  a  body  of  foreign 
ers  who  would  have  to  teach  in  French  or  Latin. 
So  what  might  have  proved  an  interesting  experi 
ment  in  transplanting  education  was  never  tried, 
and  it  will  never  be  known  whether  the  famous 
university  would  have  prospered  on  the  Potomac 
as  it  has  on  the  Rhone. 

Washington  and  Jefferson  worked  together  on 
the  educational  problem  with  as  much  harmony 
as  could  be  expected  of  men  of  such  different  tem 
peraments.  There  is  no  necessary  conflict  between 
State  and  national  education.  The  State  Uni 
versities  have  fought  hard  for  a  national  university 


102    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

at  Washington.  In  1890  John  W.  Hoyt,  first 
President  of  the  University  of  Wyoming,  revived 
the  agitation.  President  Andrew  D.  White  of 
Cornell,  President  Edmund  J.  James  of  Illinois, 
and  other  equally  prominent  educators  have 
worked  for  such  an  institution.  It  has  been  en 
dorsed  by  the  National  Association  of  State  Uni 
versities  and  by  the  National  Educational  Asso 
ciation.  The  legislatures  of  Western  States  have 
petitioned  for  it.  Washington,  Jefferson,  Madison, 
Monroe,  John  Quincy  Adams,  Grant,  Hayes,  and 
later  Presidents  have  urged  it  upon  Congress,  and 
Committees  of  the  Senate  and  House  have  re 
ported  favorably.  But,  as  President  James  of 
Illinois  remarked:  "Private  institutions,  religious 
and  secular,  have  opposed,  thus  far  successfully, 
the  movement."  Western  opinion  has  been  dis 
posed  to  ascribe  this  opposition  to  the  Eastern 
universities,  which  grew  out  of  colleges  modeled 
after  the  private  schools  of  England.  The  West 
drew  its  inspiration  from  German  and  French 
sources  and  has  come  to  regard  all  education,  from 
the  elementary  to  the  graduate  school,  as  a  public 
function.  From  this  point  of  view  the  educational 
system  appears  to  need  a  national  university  to 
complete  its  symmetry. 


WASHINGTON  AND  EDUCATION       103 

A  dream  may  be  fulfilled  in  various  ways.  The 
national  university  foreseen  by  Washington  is  still 
in  the  future.  But  the  large  endowed  universities 
in  the  East  fulfill  Washington's  ideal  by  drawing 
together  students  from  all  parts  of  the  United 
States.  The  proportion  of  American  students  now 
going  abroad  for  their  education  is  not  great  enough 
to  endanger  the  national  ideals.  Furthermore  the 
Federal  Government  is  carrying  on  many  of  the 
functions  of  such  an  institution  in  a  way  that 
would  have  pleased  Washington  and  shocked 
Jefferson.  Some  sixty  million  dollars  of  national 
funds  are  now  appropriated  annually  for  agricul 
tural  education  and  experimentation,  for  the  naval 
and  military  academies,  for  Indian  schools,  and 
for  departments  that  are  largely  occupied  with 
scientific  research  and  the  diffusion  of  knowledge, 
such  as  the  Bureaus  of  Education,  Ethnology, 
Mines,  Fisheries,  Standards,  the  Library  of  Con 
gress,  Naval  Observatory,  Public  Health  Service, 
National  Museum,  Zoological  Park,  Smithsonian 
Institution,  and  the  Coast  and  Geodetic  Survey, 


CHAPTER  VIII 

SCHOOLS   OF   THE   YOUNG   REPUBLIC 

Be  it  remembered  that  Uncle  Sam  is  an  undoubted  friend  of 
public  education,  although  so  sadly  deficient  in  his  own.  ...  It 
was,  therefore,  democratically  believed,  and  loudly  insisted  on, 
that  as  the  State  had  freely  received,  it  should  freely  give;  and 
that  "larnin,  even  the  most  powerfullest  highest  larnin,"  should 
at  once  be  bestowed  on  everybody!  and  without  a  farthing's 
expense!  —  Baynard  Rush  Hall  (1821i). 

IT  is  impossible  to  understand  anything  about  the 
American  schools  of  the  early  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  without  bearing  in  mind  the  political  con 
ditions  and  ideals  which  determined  their  organiza 
tion,  standard,  course  of  study,  equipment,  text 
books,  and  administration.  The  political  revolu 
tion  which  abolished  the  colonial  tie  with  Great 
Britain  abolished  also  the  colonial  habit  of  mind 
and  forced  the  American  people  henceforth  to  find 
in  their  own  institutions  the  stimulus  to  popular 
education  instead  of  depending  upon  the  example 
of  the  mother  country. 

The  still  more  important  peaceful  revolution 

104 


SCHOOLS  OF  THE  YOUNG  REPUBLIC  105 

which  subsequently  abolished  property  qualifica 
tions  for  the  suffrage  in  the  various  States  and 
made  most  offices  within  the  gift  of  the  people 
directly  elective  had  also  an  influence  on  the 
schools  of  America.  In  the  first  place,  it  gave  a 
stimulus  to  the  ideal  of  universal  education,  be 
cause,  if  all  men  were  to  be  voters,  the  common 
wealth  must  see  that  all  children  were  instructed, 
unless  it  desired  that  illiterates  should  direct  the 
destinies  of  the  nation.  Public  schools,  desirable 
in  colonial  days,  became  imperative  in  a  wholly 
self-governing  democracy.  Another  by-product 
of  democracy,  less  of  an  unmixed  blessing  than  the 
sentiment  in  favor  of  universal  education,  was  the 
district  school  system,  which  originated  in  Massa 
chusetts  and  Connecticut  and  was  copied  in  most 
of  the  States  of  the  Union.  A  "district"  was  the 
neighborhood  around  a  public  school,  and  there 
were  usually  several  such  districts  in  each  "town," 
although  some  towns  were  never  subdivided.  The 
school  district  is  the  smallest  and  therefore,  from  a 
democratic  standpoint,  the  most  important  of  po 
litical  divisions.  Its  size  is  determined  by  the 
length  of  the  children's  legs,  for  it  must  be  within 
walking  distance  of  most  of  the  pupils,  not  much 
over  a  mile.  The  school  district  averaged  about 


106    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

four  square  miles  in  area,  and  the  number  of  pupils 
ranged  from  half  a  dozen  to  fifty  or  more.  As  the 
means  of  transportation  improved,  the  district 
expanded  into  the  township  and  county  with  State 
supervision  and  national  aid,  until  now  we  have 
rural  county  high  schools  to  which  the  pupils  are 
brought  in  free  motor  omnibuses.  The  money 
raised  by  the  town  school  tax  was  distributed 
among  the  districts  in  various  ways  —  according 
to  the  population,  the  number  of  children  of  school 
age,  or  the  amount  paid  by  the  district  in  taxes,  or 
on  a  basis  of  equality.  In  1827  a  Massachusetts 
law  empowered  district  committeemen  to  care  for 
the  school  property  and  select  the  teacher.  This 
act,  according  to  one  writer,  represented  "the 
high-water  mark  of  modern  democracy,  and  the 
low- water  mark  of  the  public  school  system."  It 
meant  the  passing  of  school  control  from  the  expert 
and  the  official  to  the  parent  and  the  neighbor. 

The  faults  of  the  district  school  system  are  ob 
vious.  If  a  self-made  man  has  a  hard  struggle  to 
get  an  education,  so  has  a  self-made  community. 
Nothing  could  be  introduced  into  the  curriculum 
that  the  district  did  not  regard  as  "practical,"  and 
this  usually  meant  only  the  three  R's  and  spelling, 
grammar,  and  geography.  Novel  methods  were 


SCHOOLS  OF  THE  YOUNG  REPUBLIC  107 

viewed  with  as  much  dislike  as  new  studies,  and 
new  text-books  were  regarded  as  out  of  the  ques 
tion  until  the  old  ones  had  been  worn  out  by 
decades  of  continuous  use.  To  save  the  cost  of 
a  skilled  teacher's  wages,  the  district  commonly 
hired,  without  regard  to  other  considerations,  the 
cheapest  person  who  could  produce  a  certificate, 
unless  some  man  powerful  in  local  politics  had  a 
relative  for  whom  he  desired  the  place.  The  very 
districts  that  needed  good  schools  most  were  from 
their  ignorance  least  conscious  of  the  need.  As  a 
result  the  progressive  districts  raised  the  level  of 
public  instruction  from  generation  to  generation, 
while  the  schools  in  other  districts  went  from  bad 
to  worse.  This  contrast  was  most  marked  in 
States  where  there  was  no  general  system  of  super 
vision.  In  Delaware,  for  example,  an  educational 
convention  declared  in  1843  that  "the  school  of 
every  district  is  in  the  power  of  its  school  voters; 
they  can  have  as  good  a  school  as  they  please,  or  an 
inferior  school,  or  no  school." 

According  to  modern  standards  the  school  equip 
ment  of  those  days  was  usually  unspeakably  bad. 
The  schoolhouse  was  the  same  sort  of  wooden 
box  which  had  done  duty  in  colonial  times; 
there  was  the  same  lack  of  globes,  maps,  pictures, 


108    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

blackboards,  and  decorations;  there  were  the  same 
congested  wooden  benches;  the  same  red  hot  stove 
kept  the  pupils  in  the  front  benches  overheated 
while  the  children  in  the  back  of  the  room  were 
shivering  in  the  draft  from  the  window  —  some 
times  broken  but  never  open.  One  change  there 
was :  slates  came  into  general  use  after  the  Revolu 
tionary  War  and  became  ideal  instruments  for 
formal  exercises  in  arithmetic  and  quite  informal 
ventures  in  portraiture. 

The  harsh  school  discipline  known  to  tradition 
was  long  retained  in  most  American  communities^ 
even  after  some  European  countries  had  largely 
abandoned  the  rod  in  favor  of  milder  measures. 
But  the  teacher  was  not  wholly  to  blame  for  this 
conservatism.  The  American  boy  began  the  prac^ 
tice  of  liberty  and  equality  rather  too  early  in  life 
for  the  peace  of  mind  of  the  old-time  pedagogue. 
The  strict  bonds  of  social  custom  and  an  early 
training  in  reverence  for  rank  and  place  made 
obedience  natural  to  the  German  child  and  even 
to  the  boy  of  seventeenth  century  Massachusetts. 
But  deference  and  decorum. were  not  the  cardinal 
virtues  of  American  democracy  in  the  days  of 
Jackson.  In  certain  of  the  frontier  settlements 
uo  teacher  was  secure  of  his  place  until  he  had 


SCHOOLS  OF  THE  YOUNG  REPUBLIC  109 

knocked  down  three  or  four  overgrown,  mischief- 
loving  lads  who  had  challenged  his  authority. 
Sometimes  an  unpopular  teacher  would  find  his 
schoolroom  door  barred,  or  the  chimney  stopped 
up,  or  an  impromptu  holiday  enforced  in  some 
other  ingenious  fashion.  Those  who  criticize  the 
rule  of  the  rod  in  the  district  school  of  a  past  gen 
eration  sometimes  forget  with  what  conditions  the 
teacher  then  had  to  contend. 

The  best  feature  of  the  district  system  was  not 
its  influence  on  the  children  but  its  effect  on  the 
community.  In  other  countries  the  public  school 
has  been  regarded  as  a  benevolent  institution  run 
by  some  far-off  entity,  the  state,  and  the  private 
school  has  been  looked  upon  as  a  convenient  place 
to  send  the  son  or  daughter  who  was  in  the  way  at 
home.  But  the  American  public  schools  stood  not 
only  for  education  of  the  people  but  for  education 
by  the  people.  The  very  fact  that  the  school  stood 
on  no  higher  level  than  the  people  it  reached  robbed 
education  of  that  touch  of  aloofness  and  conscious 
condescension  always  irritating  to  the  uneducated 
man  who  has  instruction  imposed  upon  him  or 
his  children.  The  election  of  a  school  board,  the 
choice  of  a  new  teacher,  the  ceremonies  of  "  quar 
ter  days"  and  commencements,  were  red-letter 


110    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

occasions  to  the  village  or  farming  region  which 
supported  the  local  school. 

The  early  schoolhouse  served  also  as  a  sort  of 
community  center  —  a  "  meeting-house  "  for  church 
services,  for  political  assemblies,  and  for  "socia 
bles."  Here  the  community  gathered  for  any 
corporate  action,  and  the  women  naturally  took 
part  in  the  deliberations  as  well  as  the  men.  Out 
of  this  school  meeting  grew  the  more  complex  po 
litical  organization  of  the  community,  still  preserv 
ing  some  of  its  original  characteristics.  Thus  we 
find  that  women  voted  at  school  elections  in  many 
States  long  before  they  could  vote  for  President. 

In  the  pioneer  country  school  the  pupils  ranged 
from  ABC  children  to  girls  who  had  been  three 
times  through  the  arithmetic  or  boys  who  were 
being  coached  for  college,  while  the  spelling-bees, 
singing-schools,  and  debating  societies  constituted 
what  might  be  called  the  "extension  department" 
of  the  country  school.  Parents  visited  the  school 
at  every  convenient  opportunity  to  see  with  their 
own  eyes  how  their  money  was  being  spent  and 
how  their  children  were  getting  along.  The  spell 
ing-bee  was  not  a  mere  drill  to  impress  certain  facts 
upon  the  plastic  memory  of  youth.  It  was  also  one 
of  the  recreations  of  adult  life,  if  recreation  be  the 


SCHOOLS  OF  THE  YOUNG  REPUBLIC  111 

right  word  for  what  was  taken  so  seriously  by 
every  one.  The  spectacle  of  a  school  trustee  stand 
ing  with  a  blue-backed  Webster  open  in  his  hand 
while  gray-haired  men  and  women,  one  row  being 
captained  by  the  schoolmaster  and  the  rival  team 
by  the  minister,  spelled  each  other  down  is  one 
that  it  would  be  hard  to  reproduce  under  a  more 
centralized  and  less  immediately  popular  form  of 
school  government. 

Secondary  education  in  America  has  undergone 
a  curious  development.  During  the  colonial  period 
the  Latin  grammar  school  dominated  instruction 
beyond  the  primary  grades,  whereas  in  our  time 
the  public  high  school  is  the  leading  type.  Both 
these  institutions  were  public.  But  for  a  long 
period,  which  may  roughly  be  indicated  as  lying 
between  the  Revolution  and  the  Civil  War,  the 
Latin  Grammar  school  remained  as  a  survival  of 
another  age  while  the  high  school  was  gradually 
beginning  to  assume  its  place  as  part  of  the  educa 
tional  system  of  the  nation.  The  private  academy 
meanwhile  provided  the  link  between  elementary 
school  and  college. 

The  academy,  the  name  of  which  is  taken  from 
the  Athenian  groves  where  Plato  walked  and 


112    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

talked  with  his  pupils,  was  developed  in  England 
in  the  seventeenth  century  to  meet  the  needs  of  the 
nonconformists,  who  were  not  allowed  to  graduate 
at  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  The  earliest  American 
academies  were  also  substitutes  for  college  rather 
than  preparatory  schools  for  college.  The  first 
American  academy  to  bear  the  name  was  char 
tered  at  Philadelphia  in  1753  and  became  in  later 
years  the  University  of  Pennsylvania.  The  Phil 
lips  Academies  at  Andover,  Massachusetts,  and  at 
Exeter,  New  Hampshire,  on  the  other  hand  re 
mained  secondary  institutions;  and  still  others  be 
came  "finishing  schools"  for  those  who  required  a 
rapid  rounding  off  and  polishing  of  their  education. 
The  great  merit  of  the  academies  lay  in  adding 
breadth  and  variety  to  the  course  of  study.  The  old 
Latin  schools  which  they  had  largely  displaced 
taught  little  but  the  classics  and  taught  them  as 
grammar  rather  than  as  literature.  But  in  the 
early  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  an  academy 
would  offer  "all  the  branches  of  English,  classical, 
mathematical,  and  philosophical  literature  which 
are  taught  in  the  universities,  together  with  the 
French  language  if  required."  The  girls'  acade 
mies  —  usually  known  by  the  atrocious  title  of 
"  female  seminaries "  —  went  even  further  and 


SCHOOLS  OF  THE  YOUNG  REPUBLIC  113 

taught  many  subjects  which  no  college  of  the  day 
would  have  dreamed  of  providing  any  more  than 
it  would  of  admitting  the  girls  themselves.  In  addi 
tion  to  rhetoric,  elocution,  history,  logic,  philoso 
phy,  grammar,  spelling,  Latin,  French,  astronomy, 
and  geography  "with  the  use  of  the  globes,"  the 
female  seminaries  gave  instruction  in  needlework, 
drawing,  painting,  fancy  embroidery,  and  music. 
In  the  latter  half  of  the  century  girls  were  particu 
larly  fond  of  botany,  which  consisted  at  first  chiefly 
in  gathering  and  pressing  flowers  and  in  running 
down  their  scientific  names  by  means  of  the  key  in 
Gray  or  Wood.  Boys  were  afforded  an  opportu 
nity  to  study  such  practical  branches  as  surveying 
and  bookkeeping. 

Such  opportunities  for  obtaining  pleasant  and 
perhaps  profitable  learning  as  the  academies 
offered  did  not  leave  the  community  indifferent. 
In  Massachusetts  there  were  112  academies  char 
tered  by  1840,  although  a  few  of  these  existed  only 
on  paper.  In  Virginia  at  the  opening  of  the  Civil 
War  there  were  thirteen  thousand  pupils  enrolled 
in  the  academies  of  the  State.  Some  academies 
maintained  the  highest  standards  of  scholarship. 
Others  were  mere  catch-penny  enterprises  that 
grew  rich  by  retailing  appetizing  "extras,"  such 


114    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

as  instruction  in  Italian  or  in  some  special  variety 
of  decorative  art.  Many  academies,  including 
those  attended  by  girls,  were  practically  normal 
schools  and  offered  the  best  training  then  available 
for  those  who  intended  to  become  teachers.  On 
the  whole,  America  owes  much  to  the  academy. 
It  gave  to  many  thousand  young  men  and  women 
an  introduction  to  art,  science,  literature,  and  phi 
losophy  that  proved  an  inspiration  to  a  life  from 
which  these  elements  would  otherwise  have  been 
lacking.  By  its  emphasis  on  the  study  of  the  Eng 
lish  language  the  academy  had  much  to  do  with 
making  this  a  nation  of  fluent  speakers  and  ready 
writers.  Even  its  worst  feature,  the  overcrowded 
curriculum,  helped  by  its  very  multiplicity  to  in 
troduce  the  elective  idea  into  secondary  education. 
As  private  institutions  the  academies,  though 
frequently  subsidized  from  the  "school  fund"  or 
"literary  fund"  of  the  State,  were  supported  in 
part  by  students'  fees.  This  arrangement,  how 
ever,  restricted  secondary  education  to  those  who 
could  afford  to  pay  tuition  and  was  felt  to  be  un 
democratic.  Moreover,  after  the  establishment  of 
the  State  Universities,  it  was  considered  inconsist 
ent  for  the  public  to  charge  itself  with  the  teach 
ing  of  children  in  the  elementary  schools  and  of 


SCHOOLS  OF  THE  YOUNG  REPUBLIC  115 

men  and  women  in  the  colleges  while  leaving  the 
intermediate  years  wholly  to  private  enterprise  and 
benevolence.  Somehow  or  other  the  State  should 
provide  free  secondary  education.  The  solution 
was  finally  reached  in  the  establishment  of  the 
high  school. 

Again  Boston  took  the  lead  in  a  new  educational 
movement.  The  English  Classical  School  for 
Boys  was  opened  in  1821  as  an  alternative  to  the 
old  Latin  Grammar  school  with  its  rigid  and  nar 
row  course  of  study.  Five  years  later  a  high  school 
for  girls  was  started  in  the  same  city.  In  1826  the 
Massachusetts  Legislature  passed  a  law  requir 
ing  townships  of  five  hundred  or  more  households 
to  provide  instruction  in  American  history,  book 
keeping,  geometry,  surveying,  and  algebra.  Thus 
there  was  established  a  system  of  high  schools  in 
the  important  towns  of  the  State,  although  some 
towns  evaded  the  requirement  as  long  as  they  were 
able  to  do  so.  High  schools  were  also  started  in 
New  York  and  Philadelphia  soon  after  the  Boston 
experiment  and  independently  of  it. 

The  academies  looked  upon  the  high  schools  as 
intruders  and  upon  the  new  system  as  a  socialistic 
invasion  of  the  field  of  private  enterprise.  The 
taxpayers  in  many  places  objected  to  paying  for 


116    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

the  education  of  other  people's  children  beyond  the 
elementary  branches,  and  it  was  only  through  a 
maze  of  legal  controversies  that  the  high  schools 
finally  forced  their  way  to  public  recognition  and 
approval.  After  the  Civil  War  the  high  schools 
increased  very  rapidly  in  numbers  in  all  parts  of 
the  country  until  now  they  form  an  ineradicable 
and  perhaps  the  most  characteristic  part  of  the 
American  educational  system. 

In  the  chief  educational  systems  of  Europe  the 
secondary  school  is  not  placed  on  top  of  an  eight 
years'  course  in  the  elementary  school  but  runs 
parallel  to  it  above  the  primary  grades,  very  much 
as  our  colonial  Latin  schools  used  to  do.  The 
German  father,  for  example,  who  is  ambitious  for 
his  son's  career,  transfers  him  at  the  end  of  three 
or  four  years  from  the  elementary  school  to  some 
school  which  will  fit  him  for  future  success  in  in 
dustry  or  commerce  or  will  prepare  him  after  nine 
years'  study  for  the  university.  Each  social  class 
has  its  own  type  of  school  leading  to  a  goal  certain 
and  definite  from  the  start.  But  in  the  United 
States  a  secondary  school  has  a  double  function :  it 
must  with  the  same  curriculum  prepare  some  of  its 
students  for  higher  education,  but  it  must  also 
prepare  others  for  a  life  in  which  they  may  have 


SCHOOLS  OF  THE  YOUNG  REPUBLIC  117 

no  further  formal  schooling.  That  is  why  the  high 
schools  repeat  much  of  the  work  of  the  elementary 
schools,  why  the  colleges  give  courses  already  in 
cluded  in  the  high  school,  and  why  there  is  an  end 
less  conflict  between  the  colleges  and  the  secondary 
schools  as  to  the  requirements  for  admission  to  the 
former.  It  is  the  price  that  Americans  pay  for 
their  insistence  that  the  children  of  the  well-to-do 
shall  be  educated  together  with  the  children  of  the 
poor.  Perhaps  the  social  gain  in  the  development 
of  democratic  sentiment  is  worth  the  educational 
loss  in  delaying  the  entrance  to  college  of  those  who 
reach  it  by  way  of  "the  grades." 

The  introduction  of  text-books  which  were 
neither  imported  from  English  publishing  houses 
nor  written  in  close  imitation  of  trans-Atlantic 
models  became  a  potent  factor  in  Americanizing 
the  school.  Of  these  the  works  of  Noah  Webster 
were  perhaps  the  most  widely  influential  in  mold 
ing  the  ideas  of  the  first  generations  of  children 
born  under  the  flag  of  the  Republic.  Webster's 
famous  speller  was  the  offspring  of  the  necessity 
of  the  Revolutionary  War.  "In  the  year  1782," 
wrote  the  author,  "while  the  American  army  was 
lying  on  the  banks  of  the  Hudson  I  kept  a  classi 
cal  school  at  Goshen,  N.  Y.  The  country  was 


118    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

impoverished :  intercourse  with  Great  Britain  was 
interrupted,  and  schoolbooks  were  scarce  and 
hardly  attainable."  His  Grammatical  Institute  of 
the  English  Language,  published  the  following 
year,  was  a  combined  reader,  spelling-book,  and 
grammar.  The  sale  of  the  speller  supplied  him 
with  enough  to  live  on  while  he  worked  on  his  dic 
tionary.  He  brought  out  in  1806  the  first  edition 
of  the  dictionary  and  in  1828  appeared  the  work 
that  became  universally  known  as  Webster9 s  Un 
abridged.  There  had  been  not  a  few  text-book 
writers  in  the  colonies  but  none  had  ventured  so 
boldly  upon  innovations  nor  emphasized  the  pa 
triotic  motive  so  constantly.  His  enemies  have 
charged  Noah  Webster  with  creating  an  Ameri 
can  language  distinct  from  English,  by  simplify 
ing  English  spelling  and  recognizing  changes  in 
pronunciation.  His  friends  replied  that  but  for 
the  use  of  his  books  by  schools  in  every  part  of 
the  country  the  nation  might  have  been  divided 
by  dialects  and  there  would  have  been  not  one 
American  language  but  a  dozen. 

There  can  certainly  be  no  question  as  to  the 
nature  of  Webster's  intentions  or  the  extent  of  his 
influence.  The  aim  of  his  speller  was,  he  said,  "to 
diffuse  an  uniformity  and  purity  of  language  in 


SCHOOLS  OF  THE  YOUNG  REPUBLIC  119 

America,  to  destroy  the  provincial  prejudices  that 
originate  in  the  trifling  difference  of  dialect  and 
produce  reciprocal  ridicule."  In  the  advertise 
ment  to  his  reader  he  declared:  "I  consider  it  a 
culpable  fault  in  our  books  that  the  books  gener 
ally  used  contain  subjects  wholly  uninteresting 
to  our  youth;  while  the  writings  which  marked 
the  Revolution,  which  are,  perhaps,  not  infe 
rior  to  the  orations  of  Cicero  and  Demosthenes, 
and  which  are  calculated  to  impress  interesting 
truths  upon  young  minds,  lie  neglected  and  for 
gotten."  By  1818  Webster's  speller  alone  had 
sold  over  five  million  copies;  by  1847,  twenty- 
four  million.  Its  total  sales  by  this  time  probably 
exceed  seventy-five  million  and  it  is  still  selling 
by  the  hundred  thousand  a  year  in  spite  of  a 
thousand  competitors  which  have  sprung  up  since 
its  publication. 

The  same  patriotic  purpose  was  evident  in  the 
geographies  of  Jedediah  Morse  and  his  contem 
poraries.  Geography  a  hundred  years  ago  did  not 
have  the  narrow  and  special  meaning  now  attached 
to  it;  it  covered  all  sorts  of  information  which  it 
was  thought  interesting  or  useful  for  the  child  to 
know.  According  to  an  announcement  of  the  time, 
a  good  geography  would  give  an  account  of  the 


120    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

*' religion,  military  strength,  literature,  curiosities, 
constitution,  and  history"  of  every  country  in  the 
world.  The  United  States  received  due  considera 
tion,  nor  was  the  author  ashamed  to  make  its 
place  a  high  one.  Of  the  Americans  he  remarked 
that  "the  people  generally  are  enterprising,  indus 
trious,  persevering,  and  submissive  to  government. 
They  are  also  intelligent,  brave,  active,  and  benevo 
lent,  and  possess  a  strength  and  agility  of  body 
which  are  seldom  united  in  so  great  a  degree.  .  .  . 
Upon  the  whole,  the  manners  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States  .  .  .  are,  probably,  a  medium  be 
tween  an  honest  bluntness  on  the  one  hand, 
and  a  sickly  delicacy  on  the  other."1  The  same 
author  goes  on  to  speak  of  "the  present  manly 
ease  of  freemen,"  a  quality  to  which  Dickens 
and  other  European  travelers  preferred  to  give  a 
different  name. 

When  the  South  attempted  to  establish  its  Con 
federacy,  it  declared  at  the  same  time  its  independ 
ence  of  the  New  England  text-book.  There  was, 
for  example,  A  Geography  for  Beginners,  published 
in  1864  by  the  Reverend  K.  J.  Stewart,  which  in 
cluded  maps  showing  the  Confederate  States  of 

1  A  History  of  the  United  States  of  America,  by  Chauncey  A. 
Goodrich  (1833),  p.  523. 


SCHOOLS  OF  THE  YOUNG  REPUBLIC 

America  and  special  articles  on  such  topics  as  the 
flora  and  the  scenery  of  the  Confederate  States. 
It  shows  little  trace  of  the  passions  of  the  Civil 
War  then  raging,  but  it  comments  with  amusing 
sharpness  on  the  patronizing  attitude  adopted  by 
Europeans  to  Americans  of  both  North  and  South. 
Speaking  of  the  upper  classes  of  Great  Britain,  the 
author  remarks  that,  "as  a  class  of  men,  they  are 
superior  to  any  similar  class  of  other  nations,  un 
less  it  be  among  men  of  the  same  race  in  the  States 
of  America,  who,  with  the  exception  of  titles, 
resemble  them  very  much,  and  are  not  at  all 
their  inferiors." 

In  considering  the  factors  which  gave  the  young 
republic  a  culture  which  affected  all  classes  to  a 
more  uniform  degree  than  was  the  case  of  any 
other  civilized  country  of  the  time,  the  press  must 
be  regarded  as  the  most  important  of  text-books. 
This  was  recognized  as  early  as  1740  by  John 
Clarke  in  an  Essay  upon  the  Education  of.  Youth  in 
Grammar  Schools  in  which  he  advocated  the  teach 
ing  of  geography  and  history  in  addition  to  the 
classics.  "By  that  time  boys  are  fit  to  be  entered 
in  Greek  or  sooner,"  said  he,  "it  may  be  convenient 
to  bring  them  acquainted  with  the  Public  News, 
by  making  them  read  the  Evening  Post  or  some 


AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

other  newspaper  constantly.  These  the  master 
may  at  first  read  along  with  them,  explaining,  as 
occasion  offers,  the  Terms  of  War,  and  whatever 
else  he  apprehends  they  do  not  understand."  This 
was  an  anticipation  of  one  of  the  most  recent  inno 
vations  in  teaching.  At  the  present  time  millions 
of  copies  of  dailies,  weeklies,  and  monthlies  are 
used  in  American  classrooms  in  the  study  of  cur 
rent  events,  civics,  and  history.  Yet  then,  as  to 
day,  there  were  critics  of  American  journalism  and 
its  influence.  One  writer  held  that  American 
mediocrity  was  due  to  "the  unequaled  circulation 
of  newspapers  and  magazines  of  every  possible 
description,  as  well  as  the  variety  and  profusion  of 
other  productions  that  come  daily  and  hourly  reek 
ing  from  the  press,"1  and  drew  the  pessimistic 
inference  that  "in  proportion  as  the  facilities  of 
learning  and  means  of  investigation  are  multiplied, 
in  the  same  degree  men  seem  to  lose  sight  of  more 
noble  pursuits,  and  become  continually  more  ab 
sorbed  in  those  which  only  call  into  exercise 
their  meaner  faculties."  The  truth  seems  to  have 
been  about  half-way  between  this  harsh  censure 
and  the  spread-eagleism  of  the  writer  of  patriotic 

1  Causes  of  the  Backward  State  of  Sound  Learning  of  the  United 
States,  by  Charles  H.  Lyon  (1838). 


SCHOOLS  OF  THE  YOUNG  REPUBLIC  123 

geographies.  But  all  observers  admitted  the  fact 
that  no  social  class  was  so  high  or  so  low  as  to  be 
outside  the  influence  of  the  little  red  schoolhouse, 
the  blue-backed  speller,  and  the  newspaper. 


CHAPTER  IX 

HORACE   MANN   AND    THE   AMERICAN   SCHOOL 

Horace  Mann  is  by  general  consent  the  greatest  educator  that 
this  western  hemisphere  has  produced. — A.  E.  Winship. 

HORACE  MANN  was  the  type  of  leader  who  so 
stamps  his  personality  upon  a  great  movement  of 
reform  that  no  one  can  think  of  it  apart  from  him. 
He  spent  but  a  comparatively  short  period  of  his 
life  in  the  actual  work  of  teaching  and,  unlike  such 
educational  pioneers  as  Rousseau  or  Pestalozzi, 
he  contributed  no  new  theory  or  method  to  the 
science  of  pedagogy.  Sometimes  the  need  of  the 
age  is  for  a  man  of  boundless  energy,  enthusiasm, 
and  consecration  who  can  make  millions  of  men 
heed  the  truths  already  discerned  by  a  small  circle 
of  special  students.  Horace  Mann  was  the  instiga 
tor,  the  promoter,  one  might  almost  say  the  press 
agent,  of  modern  ideals  of  education. 

Horace  Mann  was  born  in  1796  at  Franklin, 
Massachusetts,  and  dug  the  only  really  valuable 

124 


HORACE  MANN  125 

part  of  his  early  education  out  of  the  books  in 
the  town  library  founded  by  Benjamin  Frank 
lin.  Fortunately  for  him  a  private  schoolmaster, 
Samuel  Barrett,  took  an  interest  in  the  lad  and 
encouraged  him  to  go  to  college.  Within  six 
months  he  learned  enough  Latin  and  Greek  to 
enter  the  sophomore  class  of  Brown  University, 
although  up  to  that  time  he  had  never  studied 
either  language.  This  furious  cramming,  however, 
injured  his  health  and  compelled  him  to  work  for 
the  rest  of  his  life  under  a  physical  handicap. 
Indeed,  it  was  always  the  habit  of  Mann  to  plunge 
into  a,  task  with  a  reckless  fury  that  left  his  nerves 
and  his  temper  in  rags  by  the  time  the  work  was 
completed.  "Work,"  he  once  said,  "has  always 
been  to  me  what  water  is  to  a  fish.  I  have  won 
dered  a  thousand  times  to  hear  people  say,  'I  don't 
like  this  business ' ;  or,  *  I  wish  I  could  exchange  for 
that';  for  with  me,  whenever  I  have  had  anything 
to  do,  I  do  not  remember  ever  to  have  demurred, 
but  have  always  set  about  it  like  a  fatalist;  and  it 
was  as  sure  to  be  done  as  the  sun  is  to  set." 

After  Horace  Mann  graduated  from  college,  he 
remained  for  a  short  time  as  a  tutor  at  Brown  and 
then  took  up  the  study  of  law.  He  outdistanced 
his  fellow  lawyers  by  the  same  grim  intensity  of 


126    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

effort  that  had  awed  his  instructors  in  college,  and 
in  1827  he  entered  the  Massachusetts  Legislature. 
A  clear  pathway  to  political  fame  lay  before  him, 
the  more  so  as  he  had  the  gift  of  oratory  which  was 
then  valued  above  all  others  as  a  key  to  public 
honors.  Had  his  career  not  been  deflected  into 
other  channels,  Massachusetts  might  have  had  in 
him  another  Webster  or  another  Sumner,  though 
it  is  safe  to  say  that  as  a  statesman  he  would  have 
been  less  of  an  opportunist  than  the  former  and  of 
more  balanced  judgment  than  the  latter.  But  in 
1837,  when  President  of  the  State  Senate,  he  re 
signed  all  his  political  prospects  to  accept  the  post 
of  secretary  to  the  newly  created  State  Board 
of  Education. 

It  is  hard  to  say  whether  the  friends  of  Horace 
Mann  or  the  friends  of  the  Board  of  Education 
were  the  more  surprised  and  disappointed  at  his 
action.  Horace  Mann's  friends,  with  few  excep 
tions,  tried  to  dissuade  him  from  taking  this 
humble  office.  To  some  who  said  that  the  position 
of  Secretary  to  the  Board  was  not  one  of  sufficient 
dignity,  he  replied:  "If  the  title  is  not  sufficiently 
honorable  now,  then  it  is  clearly  left  for  me  to  ele 
vate  it;  and  I  had  rather  be  creditor  than  debtor 
to  the  title."  Others,  more  practical,  urged  that  it 


HORACE  MANN  127 

was  sheer  madness  for  one  of  the  best  lawyers  of 
Massachusetts  to  give  his  whole  time  in  exchange 
for  a  beggarly  $1500  a  year.  "Well,  one  thing  is 
certain,"  said  Mann.  "If  I  live,  and  have  health, 
I  will  be  revenged  on  them;  I  will  do  them  more 
than  $1500  worth  of  good." 

On  the  other  hand,  some  were  displeased  that 
Horace  Mann  had  been  selected  for  the  office. 
They  had  nothing  to  say  against  him  personally, 
except  that  he  was  not  an  educator  by  profession, 
but  in  their  hearts  they  had  hoped  that  James  G. 
Carter,  whose  untiring  devotion  had  established 
the  principle  of  State  supervision  in  Massachusetts, 
would  become  Secretary  of  the  Board  of  Educa 
tion  which  he  had  virtually  created.  But  Mann, 
who  as  a  member  of  the  Legislature  had  already 
shown  much  interest  in  legislation  affecting  the 
schools,  took  his  new  duties  very  seriously  and 
read  as  much  as  he  could  on  educational  theory 
in  the  intervals  of  his  practical  work. 

The  chief  duty  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Board  of 
Education  at  that  time  was  to  prepare  an  annual 
report  on  the  schools  of  Massachusetts  for  the  in 
formation  of  the  Board  and  the  Legislature.  Mere 
ly  the  routine  work  of  compiling  an  abstract  of 
school  returns  was  enough  to  keep  one  person 


128    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

fairly  busy,  but  Mann  resolved  to  make  each  re 
port  also  a  battle  in  the  campaign  for  more  ade 
quate  teaching.  His  particular  target  was  the  dis 
trict  system  of  school  government,  and  his  criti 
cisms  did  more  than  anything  else  to  arouse  the 
country  to  the  need  of  central  supervision  of  the 
local  schools. 

In  addition  to  preparing  the  twelve  reports 
which  he  issued  as  Secretary,  Mann  aroused  public 
interest  in  educational  problems  by  lectures  before 
teachers'  conventions  and  public  meetings  of  all 
sorts.  He  toured  every  part  of  the  State,  arous 
ing  and  inspiring  teachers  with  a  sense  of  the  op 
portunities  before  them  for  accomplishing  great 
and  enduring  work.  With  the  same  object  of  ele 
vating  the  teacher's  occupation  he  established 
the  Common  School  Journal  and  encouraged  the 
organization  of  teachers'  institutes. 

Even  more  significant  was  Horace  Mann's  work 
in  behalf  of  teachers'  training.  In  1838  Edmund 
Dwight,  a  friend  of  Horace  Mann,  offered  ten 
thousand  dollars  towards  a  normal  school  on  con 
dition  that  the  Massachusetts  Legislature  would 
vote  an  equal  sum.  In  the  following  year  the  first 
public  normal  school  in  America  was  opened  at 
Lexington.  Cyrus  Pierce  of  Nan  tucket,  who  was 


HORACE  MANN  129 

selected  by  Mann  for  its  principal,  bravely  under 
took  the  new  work,  although  at  first  only  three 
students  were  in  attendance.  From  such  small 
beginnings  grew  the  normal  school  system  of  the 
United  States  which  now  controls  the  standards 
of  teaching  throughout  the  country.  But  the 
voters  viewed  this  innovation  with  a  certain  dis 
trust.  It  was  then  generally  held  that  anybody 
who  knew  a  fact  could  teach  it,  or  that  at  least  he 
could  learn  how  to  do  so  in  the  course  of  practice. 
The  men  of  that  generation  were  not  perhaps  al 
together  \vrong  in  thinking  that  teaching  was  the 
best  school  for  a  teacher,  but  Horace  Mann  and 
his  fellow  reformers  thought  it  wasteful  to  sacrifice 
the  interests  of  the  children  in  order  that  the 
schoolmaster  might  acquire  through  experience 
some  inklings  of  the  mistakes  to  avoid  and  the  best 
methods  to  follow. 

Another  innovation  introduced  by  Horace  Mann 
was  the  teaching  of  music  in  public  schools.  Pri 
vate  instruction  in  singing  and  piano  playing  was, 
of  course,  nothing  new,  but  it  was  something  of 
an  achievement  to  convince  the  taxpayer  that 
public  funds  should  be  used  for  instruction  in  any 
thing  so  far  removed  from  the  "practical."  All 
that  Mann  was  able  to  contribute  to  the  movement 


130    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

for  adding  music  to  the  course  of  study  was  his 
encouragement  and  championship,  his  influence 
with  the  authorities  and  the  general  public.  The 
actual  organization  of  musical  teaching  was  due  to 
his  friend  Lowell  Mason,  whose  name  is  still  re 
membered  with  gratitude  by  all  lovers  of  music. 
"It  is  well  worth  walking  ten  miles  to  hear  a  lesson 
by  Lowell  Mason,"  said  Horace  Mann,  and  he  saw 
to  it  that  the  teachers  in  the  normal  schools  and 
institutes  had  the  benefit  of  Mason's  inspiring 
instruction. 

Horace  Mann's  attempts  to  introduce  reforms 
into  common  school  education  and  his  unsparing 
attacks  on  existing  conditions  made  enemies  as 
well  as  friends.  But  it  was  not  until  the  publica 
tion  of  his  seventh  report,  in  1843,  that  the  mur 
murs  of  conservative  criticism  swelled  to  a  storm. 
The  charge  brought  against  him  was  lack  of  pa 
triotism  because  he  held  up  European  schools, 
particularly  those  of  Germany,  as  models  for 
America.  Much  unsympathetic  European  criti 
cism  had  made  the  young  republic  somewhat 
sensitive  to  comparisons  drawn  between  the  old 
world  and  the  new  unless  they  were  wholly  fa 
vorable.  The  men  of  Massachusetts  were  particu 
larly  proud  of  their  schools,  which  had  a  long  and 


HORACE  MANN  131 

honorable  tradition  behind  them  and  were  still 
perhaps  the  best  in  the  United  States,  and  they 
were  therefore  little  inclined  to  take  hints  from 
foreigners.  Horace  Mann  well  understood  this 
sensitiveness,  and  he  therefore  attempted  to  fore 
stall  hostile  criticism  by  remarking  in  his  report: 
"Wherever  I  have  found  the  best  institutions  .  .  . 
there  I  have  always  found  the  greatest  desire  to 
know  how  similar  institutions  were  administered 
among  ourselves;  and,  where  I  have  found  the 
worst,  there  I  have  found  most  of  the  spirit  of  self- 
complacency,  and  even  an  offensive  disinclination 
to  hear  of  better  methods." 

In  order  to  gather  the  materials  for  his  annual 
report  Horace  Mann  took  a  five  months'  "vaca 
tion."  This  he  spent  in  studying  foreign  schools 
and  philanthropic  institutions,  about  which  he 
prepared  a  veritable  encyclopedia  of  facts.  During 
that  brief  interval  he  "visited  England,  Ireland, 
and  Scotland;  crossed  the  German  Ocean  to  Ham 
burg;  thence  went  to  Magdeburg,  Berlin,  Pots 
dam,  Halle,  and  Weissenfels,  in  the  Kingdom  of 
Prussia;  to  Leipsic  and  Dresden  .  .  .  thence  to  Er 
furt,  Weimar,  Eisenach  .  .  .  thence  to  the  Grand 
Duchy  of  Nassau,  of  Hesse-Darmstadt,  and  of 
Baden;  and,  after  visiting  all  the  principal  cities 


132    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

in  the  Rhenish  Provinces  of  Prussia,  passed 
through  Holland  and  Belgium  to  Paris." 

Of  all  the  schools  which  he  visited  while  abroad 
Horace  Mann  found  the  Prussian  schools  the  best. 
In  the  first  place,  the  system  of  administration  was 
sound.  Attendance  was  compulsory  and  rigidly 
enforced;  the  schools  were  carefully  graded,  and 
each  teacher  had  but  one  class  in  his  room;  the 
school  inspectors  were  men  of  the  type  who  in  this 
country  would  be  judges  or  college  presidents;  and 
each  teacher  received  a  thorough  professional 
training.  He  noticed,  also,  improved  methods  of 
instruction.  Reading  was  taught  by  the  "word 
method"  instead  of  by  requiring  the  children  first 
to  learn  the  alphabet,  then  to  combine  letters  in 
syllables,  and  finally  to  build  up  words  from  these 
elements,  according  to  the  usual  American  practice. 
Foreign  languages  were  taught  by  being  used  in  the 
classroom;  geography  and  nature  study  were  pre 
sented  in  a  way  that  children  could  comprehend; 
and  drawing  was  begun  as  early  as  writing. 

All  these  minor  perfections,  however,  mattered 
little  to  him  by  comparison  with  the  fine  sympathy 
between  teacher  and  pupil  and  the  cordial  delight 
which  the  teacher  took  in  his  work.  The  classroom 
was  a  place  alive  with  activity.  In  Prussia,  as  also 


HORACE  MANN  133 

in  Saxony  and  Scotland,  Mann  said,  no  teacher 
could  hold  his  place  unless  he  had  the  power  to 
interest  the  children  and  attract  their  attention  at 
all  times.  Speaking  of  his  travels  in  Prussia  and 
Saxony,  he  remarked: 

1.  During  all  this  time,  I  never  saw  a  teacher  hearing 
a  lesson  of  any  kind  (except  a  reading  or  spelling 
lesson)  with  a  book  in  his  hand. 

2.  I  never  saw  a  teacher  sitting  while  hearing  a 
recitation. 

3.  Though  I  saw  hundreds  of  schools,  and  thousands 
—  I  think  I  may  say,  within  bounds,  tens  of  thou 
sands  —  of  pupils,  /  never  saw  one  child  undergoing 
punishment,  or  arraigned  for  misconduct. 

Although  Horace  Mann  mingled  his  praise  of 
foreign  schools  with  abundant  criticism,  a  com 
mittee  of  thirty-one  Boston  grammar  school 
teachers,  conceiving  that  he  had  insulted  the 
Massachusetts  school  system,  prepared  an  elabo 
rate  attack  on  his  report.  They  accused  Mann  of 
ignorance  of  the  schools  of  his  own  State  and  of 
neglecting  his  duties  of  inspection  to  follow  his 
hobbies  and  impractical  theories.  They  defended 
the  use  of  corporal  punishment,  the  old-fashioned 
method  of  teaching  children  to  read,  and  most  of 
the  other  practices  of  which  he  had  spoken  with 
disapproval.  They  objected  chiefly  to  his  insist- 


134    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

ence  on  keeping  the  children  interested  in  their 
studies,  because,  in  their  opinion,  unless  a  child 
learned  to  work  at  dull  or  distasteful  tasks  "mental 
discipline"  would  be  lost. 

These  remarks  on  his  report,  and  especially  the 
offensive  and  deliberately  insulting  language  in 
which  they  were  couched,  so  infuriated  Mann  that 
he  replied  in  another  pamphlet  which  fairly  flamed 
with  indignation  that  helpless  children  should 
have  such  stupid  instructors.  To  this  Reply  to  the 
Remarks  on  his  Report  there  came  a  Rejoinder,  and 
to  that  again  an  Answer.  It  is  not  worth  while 
following  the  long  drawn  out  controversy  further 
than  to  say  that  Mann's  superiority  as  a  debater 
was  as  evident  throughout  as  his  superior  wisdom 
in  educational  matters.  He  not  only  was  the  victor, 
but  the  whole  country  was  aware  of  it. 

In  1848  Horace  Mann  left  his  post.  During  the 
twelve  years  he  was  Secretary  to  the  Board  of 
Education  the  appropriation  for  public  schools  in 
the  State  had  doubled;  two  million  dollars  had 
been  spent  to  improve  school  buildings;  the  sala 
ries  of  teachers  were  increased  by  more  than  half; 
a  month  was  added  to  the  ordinary  length  of  the 
school  year;  and  three  flourishing  normal  schools 
were  founded.  As  a  token  of  public  appreciation, 


HORACE  MANN  135 

the  Massachusetts  Legislature  voted  Horace  Mann 
a  special  compensation  of  two  thousand  dollars 
above  his  salary  and  also  gave  him  a  formal  vote  of 
thanks  for  the  efficient  manner  in  which  he  had 
filled  the  post  of  Secretary.  During  the  same  year 
he  was  elected  to  Congress  from  the  constituency 
which  had  been  represented  by  ex-President  John 
Quincy  Adams.  His  chief  interest  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  was  the  anti-slavery  cause,  and 
his  political  career  is  most  widely  known  by  his 
quarrel  with  Daniel  Webster  and  the  other  con 
servative  Whigs  who  were  willing  to  compromise 
with  the  slavery  interest. 

For  the  second  time  in  his  life  Mann  abandoned 
politics  for  education.  After  serving  two  terms  in 
Congress  he  became  President  of  Antioch  College 
in  Ohio  and  carried  into  the  West  the  same  message 
of  educational  reform  that  he  had  preached  in 
Massachusetts.  Antioch  was  one  of  the  earliest 
experiments  in  higher  education  for  both  men  and 
women  and  for  students  of  all  races.  But  the 
college  did  not  greatly  prosper,  chiefly  for  lack  of 
financial  backing,  and  Horace  Mann's  death  in 
1859  was  hastened  by  overwork  and  worry. 

Like  all  the  great  New  Englanders  of  his  genera 
tion,  Horace  Mann  had  many  enthusiasms  which 


136    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

those  who  did  not  share  them  called  fads.  He 
hated  with  an  equal  hatred  ignorance,  slavery, 
drink,  tobacco,  war,  and  Calvinism.  He  believed 
firmly  in  phrenology.  He  was  as  interested  in 
institutions  for  the  insane,  the  blind,  the  deaf,  and 
the  criminal  as  he  was  in  schools  for  normal  chil 
dren.  In  a  word,  he  was  a  universal  educational 
reformer  dominated  at  every  moment  of  his  life 
by  a  sleepless  conscience.  He  was  no  fanatic  —  or, 
more  exactly,  he  was  the  most  formidable  kind  of 
fanatic,  for  he  could  wait  as  well  as  strike.  Wen 
dell  Phillips  denounced  him  for  not  joining  the 
extreme  abolitionists,  and  Theodore  Parker  ac 
cused  him  of  concealing  his  Unitarian  beliefs  from 
his  orthodox  associates  at  Antioch.  Parker  re 
marked  that  Horace  Mann  did  not  know  that  in 
morals  as  well  as  in  mathematics  a  straight  line 
is  the  shortest  distance  between  two  points;  but 
some  of  us  would  agree  rather  with  Mann  that 
the  longest  way  around  is  frequently  the  shortest 
way  home. 

Horace  Mann  was  but  one  of  the  educational 
leaders  of  his  day,  and  there  is  a  limit  to  what  one 
man,  even  the  busiest,  can  accomplish.  His  real 
importance  lies  in  his  relation  to  other  men  whom 
be  inspired  to  carry  on  and  extend  his  task  of 


HORACE  MANN  137 

reforming  the  schools.  The  excellent  public  schools 
of  far-away  Argentina,  for  instance,  owe  much  to 
the  fact  that  President  Sarmiento  had  studied  the 
work  of  Horace  Mann  during  his  travels  in  the 
United  States.  Sometimes,  indeed,  Sarmiento  is 
spoken  of  as  "the  Horace  Mann  of  South  America." 
There  is  no  more  striking  proof  of  the  extent  of 
Mann's  influence  than  the  number  of  persons  who 
have  been  labeled  "  the  Horace  Mann  of  "  whatever 
place  may  have  been  the  scene  of  their  labors.  It 
is  the  usual  biographer's  distinguishing  tag  for  a 
prominent  American  educator,  just  as  people  speak 
of  "the  Belgian  Shakespeare"  or  "the  Danish 
Shakespeare  "  in  paying  a  supreme  tribute  to  a  man 
of  letters. 

The  man  whose  career  most  closely  parallels 
that  of  Horace  Mann  and  whose  achievements 
were  of  at  least  equal  importance  in  themselves, 
though  not  perhaps  so  widely  influential,  was 
Henry  Barnard.  After  graduating  at  Yale,  he 
traveled  abroad  and  studied  the  schools  of  Ger 
many  and  Switzerland.  Upon  his  return  to  Amer 
ica  he  was  elected  to  the  Connecticut  Legislature, 
as  Horace  Mann  was  elected  to  that  of  Massachu 
setts.  Like  Mann,  again,  he  deserted  law  and 
politics  to  become  Secretary  of  the  State  Board  of 


138    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

Education.  While  occupying  this  position  he  or 
ganized  the  first  teachers'  institutes  held  in  Amer 
ica  and  edited  the  Connecticut  Common  School 
Journal.  Rhode  Island  also  owes  a  debt  of  grati 
tude  to  Barnard.  The  Connecticut  Legislature  in 
a  moment  of  reaction  abolished  the  Board  of  Edu 
cation  (or,  as  it  was  called,  the  Board  of  Com 
missioners  of  Common  Schools)  and  thus  Henry 
Barnard  lost  his  position.  Rhode  Island  seized 
the  opportunity  to  obtain  his  services  to  organize 
its  public  schools.  Repentant  Connecticut  soon 
recalled  him  to  his  old  position  but  not  before  he 
had  worked  a  revolution  in  the  Rhode  Island  school 
system.  Like  Horace  Mann,  he  spent  some  years 
in  the  Middle  West.  For  two  years  he  was  Chan 
cellor  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin  and,  while 
there,  did  much  to  organize  training  for  teachers 
throughout  that  State.  After  serving  the  cause  of 
education  in  Connecticut,  Rhode  Island,  Wiscon 
sin,  and  Maryland,  where  he  was  President  of  St. 
John's  College  at  Annapolis,  Barnard  became  the 
first  United  States  Commissioner  of  Education. 

The  great  achievement  of  Henry  Barnard,  how 
ever,  lay  not  in  administration  but  in  authorship. 
For  more  than  thirty  years  he  was  editor  of  The 
American  Journal  of  Education,  which  was  really  a 


HORACE  MANN  139 

serial  encyclopedia  of  educational  theory  and  prac 
tice.  In  it  were  included  a  large  proportion  of 
the  most  important  articles  and  monographs  ever 
written  about  education.  But  the  expense  of  the 
undertaking  was  so  great  that  Barnard,  after  losing 
more  than  $40,000  on  it,  was  compelled  to  abandon 
it,  and  the  costly  plates  would  have  been  melted 
into  type  metal  if  William  T.  Harris  had  not 
organized  a  corporation  to  save  the  series. 

The  work  accomplished  by  Horace  Mann  in 
Massachusetts  and  by  Henry  Barnard  in  Connecti 
cut  and  Rhode  Island  was  typical  of  that  done  by 
hundreds  of  other  men  of  the  same  generation  who 
served  the  interests  of  education  not  as  teachers 
but  as  the  statesmen  of  the  schools.  It  was  an 
age  when  the  expert,  the  superintendent,  the 
administrator  first  found  a  distinctive  place  in  the 
common  task  of  combating  ignorance.  The  in 
dividual  commander,  such  as  the  college  president 
or  school  principal,  was  now  aided  by  a  "general 
staff"  or  boards  of  education,  school  inspectors, 
and  normal  school  directors.  Many  a  small  boy 
sitting  in  a  bright,  well-aired,  warm  room  at  his 
individual  desk,  with  an  attractively  illustrated 
geography  open  before  him,  and  pleasant  memo 
ries  of  the  school  garden  or  the  camera  club  in  his 


140    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

thoughts,  owes  the  best  features  of  his  education 
not  to  his  teacher  but  to  some  busy  superintendent 
who  could  not  have  made  a  success  in  teaching 
even  a  district  school  but  who  could  and  did  de 
vote  his  life  to  perfecting  the  school  system.  The 
best  of  these  men,  however,  like  Horace  Mann, 
never  made  the  machinery  of  education  an  end  in 
itself,  but  kept  steadily  in  mind  the  boys  and  girls 
for  whose  benefit  it  was  all  called  into  being. 


CHAPTER  X 

DE   WITT   CLINTON   AND   THE   FREE   SCHOOL 

Ten  years  of  the  life  of  a  child  may  now  be  spent  in  a  common 
school.  In  two  years  the  elements  of  instruction  may  be  acquired 
and  the  remaining  eight  years  must  now  be  spent  in  repetition  or 
idleness,  unless  the  teachers  of  the  common  schools  are  competent 
to  instruct  in  the  higher  branches  of  knowledge.  The  outlines  of 
geography,  algebra,  mineralogy,  agriculture,  chemistry,  mechani- 
pal  philosophy,  surveying,  geometry,  astronomy,  political  econ 
omy  and  ethics  might  be  communicated  by  able  preceptors  with 
out  essential  interference  with  the  calls  of  domestic  industry.  — 
De  Witt  Clinton. 

MASSACHUSETTS  is  typical  of  those  States  which, 
having  a  democratic  system  of  public  instruction, 
sought  to  make  it  efficient;  New  York  is  a  good 
example  of  those  States  which,  having  a  sys 
tem  of  public  instruction  that  recognized  class 
distinctions,  sought  to  make  it  democratic.  In 
New  England  the  chief  battleground  was  the  ques 
tion  of  expert  supervision  over  the  district  school; 
in  the  Middle  Atlantic  States  and  in  some  parts 
of  the  South  the  great  issue  was  the  abolition 
of  the  distinction  between  "pay"  pupils  and 

141 


142    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

those  who,  by  a  kind  of  charity,  were  given  their 
tuition  free. 

Of  course,  the  question  of  expert  supervision 
has  also  been  an  important  one  in  New  York,  but 
in  one  sense  it  may  be  said  that  the  supervision 
was  older  than  the  schools.  Nowhere  in  America 
had  the  Revolutionary  War  more  thoroughly  un 
settled  what  little  had  been  accomplished  for  the 
younger  generation  in  colonial  days.  True  public 
schools  did  not  exist,  although  a  few  parish  schools 
and  academies  had  weathered  the  stormy  time, 
and  even  King's  College,  with  its  honorable  record 
of  public  service,  was  forced  to  close  its  doors  for 
several  years.  The  revival  of  education  under  the 
republic  began  at  the  top.  In  1784  King's  College 
was  reopened  under  the  name  of  Columbia  and  was 
made  the  center  of  a  State  educational  system. 
Young  De  Witt  Clinton  was  the  first  student  ma 
triculated  in  Columbia  College,  and  he  graduated 
in  1786  with  the  first  class  to  receive  degrees  from 
the  institution. 

By  the  act  of  1784  a  "University  of  the  State  of 
New  York"  was  created.  This  was  not  a  univer 
sity  in  the  American  sense  of  a  single  institution, 
but  in  the  French  sense  of  a  governing  body  placed 
over  all  the  colleges  and  schools  that  might  be  es- 


CLINTON  AND  THE  FREE  SCHOOL     143 

tablished.  A  Board  of  Regents  was  "empowered 
to  found  Schools  and  Colleges  in  any  such  part  of 
the  State  as  may  seem  expedient  to  them  and  to 
endow  the  same  .  .  .  directing  the  manner  in 
which  such  Colleges  are  to  be  governed."  Georgia 
had  already  founded  a  "university"  of  this  type 
and  Michigan  (when  still  a  Territory)  later  ex 
perimented  even  more  boldly  on  the  same  lines. 
But  the  systematic  organization  of  all  schools  into 
a  "university"  has  not  been  widely  adopted  in  the 
United  States  and  is  nowhere  fully  carried  out. 
Even  in  New  York,  the  Regents  at  first  confined 
their  attention  largely  to  Columbia  College  and 
permitted  the  lesser  schools  to  shift  for  themselves. 
Governor  George  Clinton,  uncle  of  De  Witt 
Clinton,  did  not  find  the  educational  situation 
satisfactory.  He  praised  the  good  work  done  by 
the  private  academies  but,  as  he  told  the  Legisla 
ture,  "it  cannot  be  denied  that  they  are  principally 
confined  to  the  children  of  the  opulent,"  and  he 
recommended  the  establishment  of  public  schools 
throughout  the  State.  The  legislators  somewhat 
unwillingly  untied  the  public  purse  strings  and 
granted  an  annual  appropriation  to  aid  towns 
which  started  common  schools.  After  five  years 
the  plan  was  abandoned,  but  in  1812  a  new  law 


144    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

established  a  general  system  of  public,  schools 
under  a  State  Superintendent,  which  was  in  part 
supported  by  local  tax,  in  part  by  State  aid,  and 
in  part  from  "rate  bills"  on  the  parents  whose 
children  attended  the  schools. 

In  1805,  before  the  final  establishment  of  a  gen 
eral  school  system  for  the  State,  a  number  of  pub 
lic-spirited  citizens  of  New  York  City  organized 
a  Free  School  Society  to  care  for  the  poor  children 
who  had  no  other  means  of  education.  In  this 
thriving  city  of  more  than  seventy-five  thousand 
persons,  thousands  of  children  were  growing  up 
without  any  instruction  because  they  could  not 
pay  to  enter  the  private  schools  and  because  their 
parents  did  not  wish  to  send  them  to  the  charity 
schools  maintained  by  some  of  the  churches.  The 
schools  founded  by  the  Society  were,  barring  one 
very  brief  and  unhappy  trial  of  the  rate  bill,  free  to 
all  children  and  not  bound  to  any  creed,  but  their 
control  remained  in  the  hands  of  the  Trustees  of 
the  Society.  For  nearly  half  a  century  the  educa 
tion  of  the  children  of  the  most  important  city  in 
America  was  in  charge  of  a  private  corporation. 

The  Free  School  Society,  later  known  as  the 
Public  School  Society,  was  the  masterpiece  of  De 
Witt  Clinton.  He  was  the  first  President  of  its 


CLINTON  AND  THE  FREE  SCHOOL     145 

Board  of  Trustees  and  he  was  the  largest  sub 
scriber  towards  its  objects.  While  a  member  of 
the  New  York  Legislature  he  obtained  an  appro 
priation  for  the  Society  and  opposed  all  attempts 
to  scatter  among  church  schools  the  share  which 
belonged  to  New  York  City.  No  one  knew  better 
than  Clinton  that  the  citizens  should  support  and 
control  their  own  schools;  but  New  York  was  not 
yet  awake  to  this  necessity,  and  he  therefore  did 
the  next  best  thing  in  supporting  free  schools  open 
to  every  one  without  the  taint  of  charity  to  offend 
the  sensitive  pride  of  the  poor.  New  York  might 
long  have  remained  a  city  of  illiterates  if  De  Witt 
Clinton  had  not  been  one  of  its  citizens,  and  it 
is  but  a  just  recognition  of  his  services  that  the 
largest  high  school  in  the  city  now  bears  his  name. 
Clinton  had  also  much  to  do  with  the  method  of 
teaching  in  the  schools  of  the  Society.  He  studied 
the  English  system  of  pupil  teaching,  sometimes 
called  the  Bell-Lancaster  system  from  the  two  men 
who  claimed  the  invention  of  it,  and  favored  its 
adoption  in  American  schools.  The  basic  idea  of 
this  system  was  to  turn  the  routine  of  teaching 
over  to  the  older  children  who  could  teach  what 
they  themselves  had  recently  learned.  The  teacher 
himself  was  like  the  superintendent  of  a  factory: 


146    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

his  chief  duty  was  to  police  the  establishment  and 
see  that  everything  went  smoothly.  By  this  ar 
rangement  one  man  sometimes  took  charge  of  five 
hundred  children.  No  quicker  and  cheaper  method 
of  varnishing  a  large  class  with  a  knowledge  of  the 
three  R's  can  well  be  imagined;  and  the  schoolboy 
monitors,  though  they  were  not  competent  to  give 
expert  instruction,  were  hardly  expected  to  do  so. 
In  those  days  even  the  "regular"  teacher  of  the 
district  school  was  little  more  than  a  drillmaster  to 
keep  the  children  in  order  and  to  hear  their  lessons; 
and  why  could  not  a  monitor  do  as  much?  Many 
ingenious  ideas  were  introduced  as  part  of  the  sys 
tem,  such  as  teaching  the  children  to  read  from 
wall  charts  and  to  write  by  making  letters  in  sand. 
After  Clinton's  death  the  Public  School  Society 
found  itself  more  and  more  out  of  touch  with  the 
times.  The  growing  Irish-Catholic  population  of 
the  city  demanded  a  share  of  the  State  funds  for 
their  own  schools,  and,  when  met  by  the  answer 
that  public  money  should  not  be  used  to  support 
sectarian  schools,  argued  that  the  Public  School 
Society  was  a  private  organization  dominated  by  a 
Protestant  atmosphere.  They  added  their  voices 
—  and  votes  —  to  complaints  from  other  sources 
against  permitting  a  private  legal  monopoly  of 


CLINTON  AND  THE  FREE  SCHOOL    147 

public  instruction.  Governor  Seward  at  last  ex 
pressed  the  popular  discontent  in  his  Annual 
Message  in  1842  and  urged  "the  expediency  of 
vesting  in  the  people  of  the  City  of  New  York, 
what  I  am  sure  the  people  of  no  other  part  of  the 
State  would,  upon  any  consideration,  relinquish  — 
the  education  of  their  children."  The  Public 
School  Society  did  not  take  its  death  sentence 
quietly.  Professing  to  fear  "the  blighting  influ 
ence  of  party  strife  and  sectarian  animosity"  if  the 
schools  were  transferred  to  public  control,  the 
Society  continued  for  ten  years  to  support  its  own 
free  schools  in  spite  of  the  organization  of  public 
schools  known  as  the  "ward  schools."  When  the 
two  systems  were  finally  combined  into  one,  each 
contributed  several  buildings  and  a  nearly  equal 
number  of  pupils.  The  present  city  public  school 
system  which  grew  out  of  this  union  is  on  as  com 
prehensive  a  scale  as  that  of  the  largest  States. 
There  is  even  a  public  university,  the  College  of 
the  City  of  New  York,  the  largest  municipal  col 
lege  in  America,  with  a  history  covering  seventy 
years  of  service  to  the  community. 

De  Witt  Clinton's  interest  in  education  was  not 
confined  to  his  work  for  the  Public  School  Soci 
ety.  As  Governor  he  succeeded  in  securing  liberal 


148    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

appropriations  from  the  State  Legislature,  but  his 
programme  of  educational  statesmanship,  outlined 
in  his  annual  messages,  far  outranged  the  imagina 
tion  of  his  generation.  He  desired,  by  establishing 
monitorial  high  schools,  to  develop  into  a  corps  of 
professionally  trained  teachers  the  monitors  who 
taught  under  the  Lancaster  plan.  He  advocated 
the  higher  education  of  women.  He  favored  special 
provision  for  the  education  of  Indians  and  negroes. 
He  advised  the  creation  of  a  State  Board  of  Agri 
culture  to  correspond  with  the  county  societies 
and  suggested  "a  professorship  in  agriculture  con 
nected  with  the  board  or  attached  to  the  univer 
sity."  Clinton  laid  special  emphasis  on  the  less 
formal  educational  agencies  —  libraries,  lyceums, 
county  agricultural  associations,  mechanics'  in 
stitutes,  and  all  manner  of  literary,  historical,  and 
philosophical  societies.  The  educational  progress 
of  New  York  has  in  the  main  followed  the  path 
blazed  by  Clinton. x 

Clinton  did  not  live  to  see  free  common  schools 
under  public  control  established  throughout  the 
State.  After  many  years  of  agitation  the  New 
York  Legislature  passed  an  act  in  1849  providing 

1  See  The  Educational  Views  and  Influence  of  De  Witt  Clinton 
by  Edward  A.  Fitzpatrick. 


CLINTON  AND  THE  FREE  SCHOOL    149 

for  the  abolition  of  all  school  fees  and  for  the  sup 
port  of  all  common  schools  by  local  taxation  with 
aid  from  the  State  fund,  and  on  referendum  the 
people  approved  the  change  by  an  overwhelming 
majority.  But  opposition  to  the  free  school  was 
not  yet  dead.  The  following  year  the  question  of 
repeal  was  submitted  to  the  State,  and  the  vote  was 
so  close  that  the  Legislature  ventured  to  set  aside 
the  twice  repeated  verdict  of  the  majority  of  citi 
zens  and  enact  a  compromise  bill  whereby  a  State 
tax  was  levied  on  all  property  for  the  support  of 
the  schools,  retaining  the  rate  bill  to  make  up  any 
local  deficit.  Parents  unable  to  pay  might  send 
their  children  to  school  free,  but  this  fact  only  em 
phasized  the  social  chasm  between  the  rich  and 
the  poor.  Not  until  1867,  nearly  forty  years  after 
the  death  of  De  Witt  Clinton,  were  the  public 
schools  free  to  all. 

The  fight  for  free  schools  was  one  of  the  great 
landmarks  in  the  history  of  American  democracy. 
Public-spirited  men  urged  that  the  interests  of  the 
commonwealth  demanded  that  education  be  uni 
versal.  "We  hold,"  said  The  Tribune  in  1850, 
"that  our  present  school  tax  is  not  imposed  on  the 
rich  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor;  but  imposed  on  the 
whole  State  for  the  benefit  of  the  State."  One 


150    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

advocate  of  tax-supported  education  declared  that 
"  property  can  better  afford  to  educate  four  chil 
dren  in  the  schoolhouse  than  one  in  the  street." 
The  workingmen  of  the  cities  strongly  favored  any 
change  that  would  abolish  the  stigma  of  charity 
from  public  education,  the  more  so  that  New  York 
City  was  already  accustomed  to  the  free  schools 
founded  by  the  Public  School  Society.  Many  of 
the  other  cities  shouldered  the  burden  of  taxation 
so  willingly  that  there  was  no  deficit  to  be  made 
good  from  the  pocketbook  of  the  parent. 

In  the  rural  districts  both  conditions  and  ideas 
were  different.  On  the  referendum  of  1850  forty- 
two  counties  out  of  fifty-nine  favored  the  repeal 
of  the  law  providing  free  schools,  and  nearly  all 
these  were  purely  rural.  The  New  York  farmer 
was  not  indifferent  or  averse  to  education,  but  he 
had  no  experience  of  the  free  school  system.  "  The 
right  of  the  parent"  to  care  for  his  own  children's 
education  and  "the  right  of  property"  not  to  be 
taxed  for  the  benefit  of  other  people  prevented  him 
from  seeing  "the  right  of  the  child."  The  farmer 
viewed  with  some  disapproval  the  "fads  and  frills" 
with  which  the  old-time  district  school  was  being 
contaminated.  Resolutions  voted  by  one  rural 
district,  for  instance,  ran  thus:  "We  are  in  favor  of 


CLINTON  AND  THE  FREE  SCHOOL    151 

a  simple  and  plain  system  of  popular  education, 
without  Normal  Schools,  teachers'  institutes,  dis 
trict  school  journals,  supported  by  the  State,  or 
hordes  of  school  officers."  There  were  also  the  par 
tisans  of  the  private  school  who  were  opposed  to 
free  schools;  and  one  Roman  Catholic  organ  in 
New  York  professed  to  fear  the  coming  of  "state 
monopoly,  state  despotism,  and  state  socialism" 
in  this  once  free  country  if  public  schools  became 
universal.  Neither  the  example  of  New  England 
nor  the  arguments  of  Clinton  could  convert  the 
whole  of  New  York  to  the  benefits  of  the  free  school. 
Time  and  experience  were  needed. 

The  free  school  had  an  even  harder  struggle  for 
existence  in  the  Keystone  State  than  in  the  Em 
pire  State,  for  in  Pennsylvania  the  principle  that 
the  parent  should  pay  for  the  schooling  of  his  chil 
dren  was  reinforced  by  jealousies  of  race  and  creed 
which  were  rooted  in  the  traditions  of  colonial 
times.  The  Germans  in  particular  clung  to  their 
own  private  schools,  for  through  them  they  were 
enabled  to  keep  alight  the  flame  of  their  ances 
tral  culture,  which,  they  feared,  might  too  easily 
be  extinguished  by  the  "Anglo-Saxon"  influences 
of  the  public  school.  Thus  in  Pennsylvania,  in  the 
early  years  of  the  nineteenth  century,  was  seen  the 


152    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

curious  paradox  of  people  whose  kinsmen  in  Ger 
many  at  that  time  enjoyed  the  best  public  school 
system  in  the  world  working  zealously  to  keep  the 
free  school  out  of  the  State  in  which  they  lived. 

In  1834  there  was  enacted  in  Pennsylvania  the 
first  law  providing  throughout  this  State  schools 
that  were  free  to  all  as  well  as  to  those  who  could 
not  afford  to  pay.  Private  education  and  "pau 
per"  schools  had  left  ominous  gaps  in  the  instruc 
tion  of  the  rising  generation,  and  it  has  been  esti 
mated  that  in  Pennsylvania  alone  there  were  in 
the  third  decade  of  the  century  a  quarter  of  a 
million  children  of  school  age  not  attending  any 
kind  of  school.1  As  was  later  the  case  in  New 
York,  the  law  was  passed  without  much  difficulty; 
but  when  the  time  came  to  put  it  into  effect  and 
taxes  consequently  threatened  to  increase,  there 
was  a  strong  agitation  for  its  repeal.  The  cause 
of  free  education  was  saved  by  Thaddeus  Stev 
ens,  who  fought  for  it  in  the  Legislature  with 
an  eloquence  and  fiery  earnestness  that  at  once 
turned  the  tide  of  public  opinion  and  made  him  a 
national  figure. 

The  law  of  1834  permitted  districts,  if  they  pre 
ferred  going  without  their  share  of  the  State  fund 

1  Wickersham,  History  of  Education  in  Pennsylvania- 


CLINTON  AND  THE  FREE  SCHOOL    153 

to  paying  local  taxes  for  free  schools,  to  stand  out 
side  of  the  new  system.  The  northern  counties 
of  the  State,  settled  largely  from  New  York  and 
New  England,  quickly  adopted  the  free  school, 
and  the  workingmen  of  the  big  towns  were  en 
thusiastic.  On  the  other  hand,  the  German  settle 
ments,  many  rural  districts,  and  places  where  sec 
tarian  influence  was  strong  and  private  schools 
were  many  and  good,  refused  for  many  years  to 
take  advantage  of  the  law. 

It  was,  of  course,  unfortunate  that  the  American 
school  had  to  make  its  way  against  the  prejudices 
and  narrow  views  of  economy  that  could  not  see 
why  a  rich  bachelor  should  be  taxed  to  keep  all  the 
children  of  the  district  at  school.  But  a  slow  con 
version  is  often  the  most  lasting.  No  one  in  any 
State  could  be  found  today  to  write  in  all  serious 
ness  such  an  appeal  as  was  addressed  to  the  North 
Carolina  Legislature  by  an  opponent  of  public 
education  in  1829:  "Gentlemen,  I  hope  you  do  not 
conceive  it  at  all  necessary,  that  everybody  should 
be  able  to  read,  write,  and  cipher.  If  one  is  to  keep 
a  store  or  a  school,  or  to  be  a  lawyer  or  physi 
cian,  such  branches  may,  perhaps,  be  taught  him; 
though  I  do  not  look  upon  them  as  by  any  means 
indispensable :  but  if  he  is  to  be  a  plain  farmer,  or  a 


154    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

mechanic,  they  are  of  no  manner  of  use,  but  rather 
a  detriment."1 

In  spite  of  this  persuasive  plea,  North  Carolina 
was  converted  to  a  belief  in  the  public  school 
even  before  the  Civil  War,  and  most  of  the  other 
Southern  States  followed  its  example  immediately 
after  the  close  of  the  conflict.  The  wealthy  and 
populous  States  of  the  middle  Atlantic  seaboard 
achieved  free  education  earlier,  but  only  against 
the  strong  obstacles  of  the  well-endowed  private 
schools  for  the  rich  and  the  charity  schools  for  the 
poor  which,  between  them,  seemed  to  leave  little 
room  for  a  democratic  education.  But  beyond  the 
Ohio  and  the  Mississippi  there  were  new  commu 
nities  where  the  free  school  was  as  much  a  mat 
ter  of  course  in  the  days  of  the  sod  hut  as  in 
the  days  of  the  skyscraper.  These  frontier  folk 
could  have  little  comprehension  of  the  task  that 
had  confronted  such  pioneers  of  democracy  as 
De  Witt  Clinton  in  awakening  the  conscience  of 
conservative  and  tradition  bound  communities. 

1  Knight,  Public  School  Education  in  North  Carolina. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE   WESTWARD   MOVEMENT 

Religion,  morality  and  knowledge  being  necessary  to  good  gov 
ernment  and  the  happiness  of  mankind,  schools  and  the  means 
of  education  shall  forever  be  encouraged.  —  Ordinance  of  1787. 

I  doubt  whether  one  single  law  of  any  lawgiver,  ancient  or 
modern,  has  produced  effects  of  a  more  distinct,  marked  and  last 
ing  character  than  the  Ordinance  of  1787.  —  Daniel  Webster. 

As  each  new  State  emerged  from  the  western  wil 
derness,  there  ensued  a  period  of  local  competi 
tion  in  which  rival  towns  strove  for  the  possession 
of  the  various  governmental  institutions.  It  was 
commonly  conceded  that  in  the  long  run  a  uni 
versity  would  be  preferable  to  a  penitentiary  and  a 
normal  school  to  an  insane  asylum.  But  as  first 
aid  to  a  pioneer  town  struggling  for  existence  the 
choice  was  debatable,  for  a  penal  or  charitable  in 
stitution  was  from  the  start  sure  of  inmates  and 
state  support  while  an  educational  institution  was 
not  so  certain  of  getting  either.  Both  of  the  former 
institutions  would  be  a  steady  source  of  income  to 
the  community  while  the  latter  usually  required 

155 


156    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

local  subsidies  for  its  establishment.  But  a  college 
of  any  sort  had  the  advantage  in  that  it  gave  a 
certain  prestige  to  a  town  and  attracted  a  superior 
class  of  settlers.  In  order  so  far  as  possible  to 
satisfy  these  local  demands  the  university  was 
sometimes  given  to  one  town,  the  agricultural  col 
lege  or  colleges  to  another,  with  perhaps  several 
experimental  stations  or  farms  in  various  places 
and  one  or  more  normal  schools  elsewhere. 

Never  in  the  history  of  the  country  were  colleges 
so  sought  for  as  in  the  settlement  of  the  great 
Mississippi  Valley.  The  various  religious  de 
nominations,  all  eager  to  secure  "strategic  points," 
were  ready  to  meet  the  demand.  Sometimes  it 
happened  that  two  or  three  "universities"  were 
started  simultaneously  in  the  same  town.  The 
tourist  may  still  see  from  his  car  window  a  stately 
building  standing  solitary  and  deserted  and  on 
inquiry  may  learn  that  it  was  a  university  built  to 
boom  a  certain  suburb  in  the  vain  hope  of  pulling 
the  town  in  that  direction.  The  rival  denomina 
tional  colleges  joined  in  denouncing  the  State 
}  University  as  an  "atheistic  institution"  where 
chapel  was  not  compulsory  and  the  professors 
were  suspected  —  not  always  without  reason  —  of 
teaching  evolution  and  practicing  vivisection. 


THE  WESTWARD  MOVEMENT         157 

But  out  of  this  chaos,  in  which  religious  zeal, 
educational  aspirations,  local  pride,  political  wire 
pulling,  and  the  real  estate  interests  were  inextri 
cably  commingled,  have  grown  the  fine  institutions 
which  appeal  everywhere  to  State  pride.  Secta 
rian  animosities  have  died  out.  Doctrinal  ortho 
doxy  no  longer  serves  to  conceal  educational  in 
efficiency.  The  State  Universities,  though  non- 
sectarian,  count  between  seventy  and  eighty  per 
cent  of  church  adherents  among  their  students. 
As  an  institution  the  college  is  becoming  differen 
tiated  from  the  university,  though  there  are  still 
misnomers  on  both  sides  of  the  line.  The  college 
presidents  who  went  about  the  State  "drumming 
up  "  students  in  order  to  make  a  good  showing  to 
conference  or  synod  inspired  an  ambition  for 
higher  education  in  the  minds  of  boys  and  girls 
who  otherwise  would  never  have  thought  of  such 
a  thing.  This  early  collegiate  competition  is 
doubtless  one  reason  why  now  a  much  larger  pro 
portion  of  the  population  goes  to  college  in  the 
West  than  in  the  East. 

The  scheme  of  endowing  education  by  land 
grants,  never  elsewhere  carried  so  far  as  in  America, 
was  an  ingenious  one.  From  a  theoretical  stand 
point  it  seems  perfect,  for  it  meant  the  absorption 


158    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

for  public  purposes  of  what  Henry  George  called 
"the  unearned  increment."  A  newly  organized 
State  was  rich  in  land  but  in  nothing  else.  The 
Government  could  afford  to  be  generous  in  dona 
tions  of  land  which  cost  it  nothing  and  which 
would  rise  in  value  as  the  country  became  settled, 
automatically  keeping  pace  with  the  prosperity 
of  the  community.  The  income  from  this  landed 
endowment  might  be  expected  to  increase  at 
least  as  rapidly  as  the  number  of  children  to 
be  educated. 

Actually  the  scheme  did  not  work  out  so  well  as 
it  promised.  The  land  at  first  did  not  cost  any 
thing  —  but  neither  did  it  at  first  bring  in  any 
thing.  The  institutions  dependent  upon  it  were  in 
the  position  of  the  heir  to  a  dukedom  who  might 
expect  to  be  master  of  a  magnificent  fortune  some 
fifty  years  hence  but  in  the  meantime  had  not  a 
penny.  Having  turned  over  to  the  State  Univer 
sity  the  township  set  aside  for  it  by  Congress,  the 
Legislature  was  prone  to  think  that  it  had  done 
enough  and  to  expect  the  university  to  run  itself 
on  such  a  grant.  But  a  university  cannot  live  on 
land  alone,  especially  when  it  cannot  lease  it.  It 
was  in  truth  a  royal  domain,  but  professors'  sala 
ries  cannot  be  paid  out  of  prospective  valuations. 


THE  WESTWARD  MOVEMENT         159 

So  it  is  no  wonder  that  regents  sometimes  suc 
cumbed  to  temptation  and  sold  at  $1.25  an  acre 
land  that  is  now  worth  $125.  If  the  colleges  of  the 
United  States  had  been  able  to  hold  on  to  all  the 
real  estate  that  they  received  in  the  last  three 
hundred  years,  they  would  be  the  wealthiest  of 
their  kind  in  the  world.  The  total  land  grants  for 
the  common  schools,  which  amount  to  81,064,300 
acres  and  are  equal  to  the  combined  area  of  Ohio, 
Indiana,  and  Illinois,  are  now  worth  $500,000,000. x 
The  colonial  colleges  were  aided  in  their  early 
days  by  land  grants,  but  the  most  extensive  ces 
sions  of  this  sort  were  those  made  by  the  Federal 
Government.  When  the  States  claiming  land  in 
the  Northwest  Territory,  between  the  Ohio  River 
and  the  Great  Lakes  and  east  of  the  Mississippi, 
agreed  to  surrender  their  claims  to  the  Govern 
ment  of  the  United  States,  the  Land  Ordinance  of 
1785  was  passed  by  the  Congress  of  the  Confedera 
tion  providing  for  a  system  of  rectangular  surveys 
in  the  new  domain.  In  this  ordinance  was  the 
provision  that  "there  shall  be  reserved  the  lot  No. 
16  of  every  township  for  the  maintenance  of  public 
schools  within  the  said  township."  In  this  same 
year  Congress  sold  1,500,000  acres  of  land  to  the 

1  Monroe's  Cyclopedia  of  Education,  vol.  iv,  p.  375. 


160    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

Ohio  Company,  reserving  Section  16  in  every 
township  for  schools,  Section  29  for  religion,  and 
granting  two  townships  for  a  university.  Ohio 
was  thus  the  first  State  to  receive  the  educational 
land  grant  and  the  only  one  to  receive  the  religious 
land  grant.  Of  these  townships  one  went  to  the 
founding  of  the  University  of  Ohio  at  Athens  in 
1804  and  another  to  the  founding  of  Miami  Uni 
versity  at  Oxford  in  1809.  Ohio  State  University 
at  Columbus  came  into  existence  in  1870  when  the 
Legislature  complied  with  the  terms  of  the  Morrill 
land  grant.  Besides  these  three  State  institutions 
Ohio  has  thirty-seven  other  universities  and  col 
leges,  mostly  established  by  various  denominations. 
Of  these  Oberlin  and  Antioch  are  mentioned  else 
where.  Western  Reserve,  now  at  Cleveland,  was 
founded  in  1826  at  Hudson  by  the  Presbyterians 
in  part  to  counteract  the  Congregational  College 
of  Oberlin  which  they  regarded  as  too  radical. 
The  chief  formative  influence  of  the  Ohio  public 
school  system  was  the  association  of  teachers,  the 
first  of  its  kind,  known  as  the  Western  Literary 
Institute,  organized  at  Cincinnati  in  1829.  One 
of  its  founders,  Calvin  E.  Stowe,  was  commissioned 
by  the  Legislature  to  study  the  schools  of  Europe. 
He  came  back  enthusiastic  for  the  Prussian  system 


THE  WESTWARD  MOVEMENT         161 

and  inspired  Horace  Mann  of  Massachusetts  and 
Henry  Barnard  of  New  York  with  the  same  ideals. 
The  Ohio  Legislature  in  1838  printed  ten  thousand 
copies  of  his  report,  and  it  was  largely  through  their 
influence  that  the  educational  system  of  Ohio  and 
other  States  was  reformed  and  strengthened. 

Not  to  be  outdone  by  Ohio  the  first  General 
Assembly  of  the  Territory  of  Indiana  in  1806 
passed  an  act  establishing  Vincennes  University 
signed  by  Governor  William  Henry  Harrison, 
afterwards  President  of  the  United  States.  The 
preamble  is  worth  quoting  as  illustrating  not  only 
the  educational  ideals  of  the  pioneer  community, 
but  also  the  style  of  legislative  rhetoric: 

Whereas,  the  independence,  happiness,  and  energy  of 
every  republic  depend  (under  the  influence  of  the  des 
tinies  of  Heaven)  upon  the  wisdom,  effort,  talents,  and 
energy  of  its  citizens  and  rulers;  and 
Whereas  science,  literature,  and  the  liberal  arts 
contribute  to  an  emiment  degree  to  improve  these 
qualities  and  requirements;  and 

Whereas  learning  hath  ever  been  found  the  ablest  ad 
vocate  of  genuine  liberty,  the  best  supporter  of  ra 
tional  religion,  and  the  source  of  the  only  solid  and 
imperishable  glory  which  nations  can  acquire.  .  .  . 

In  order  to  support  "rational  religion"  a  de 
partment  of  theology  was  authorized  in  Vincennes 


162    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

University,  but  it  was  stipulated  that  "no  particu 
lar  tenets  of  religion  "  should  be  taught.  The  trus 
tees  were  instructed  by  the  Act  of  1806  "to  establish 
an  institution  for  the  education  of  females"  as  soon 
as  their  funds  should  permit. 

But  Vincennes  University  did  not  thrive,  and 
in  1822  the  State  Legislature  transferred  the  un 
sold  land  to  the  seminary  that  had  been  estab 
lished  at  Bloomington.  The  trustees  of  Vincennes 
brought  suit  for  the  restoration  of  the  lands,  and 
thirty  years  later  obtained  from  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court  a  decision  in  their  favor.  But  the 
long  litigation  had  consumed  a  large  part  of  the 
disputed  fund,  and  by  that  time  the  rival  institu 
tion  at  Bloomington  was  firmly  established  as  the 
University  of  Indiana.  The  Morrill  Act  in  1862 
gave  to  Indiana  land  scrip  to  390,000  acres  which 
realized  over  $300,000.  This  was  devoted  to  the 
establishment  of  a  separate  agricultural  college, 
later  named  Purdue  University  in  honor  of  John 
Purdue  of  La  Fayette  who  endowed  it  with  $150,- 
000.  It  is  now  one  of  the  largest  of  all  State 
engineering  schools. 

That  the  early  legislators  of  Indiana  had  a 
complete  conception  of  the  educational  theory 
which  has  been  since  worked  out  in  the  Western 


THE  WESTWARD  MOVEMENT         163 

States  is  shown  from  this  clause  in  the  constitu 
tion  of  1816:  "It  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  Gen 
eral  Assembly,  as  soon  as  circumstances  permit, 
to  provide  by  law  for  a  general  system  of  education, 
ascending  in  regular  gradation  from  township 
schools  to  a  state  university,  wherein  tuition  shall 
be  gratis  and  equally  open  to  all."  All  fines  for 
breaches  of  the  penal  laws  and  "the  money  which 
shall  be  paid  as  an  equivalent  by  persons  ex 
empt  from  militia  duty,  except  in  time  of  war" 
were  to  be  applied  to  the  support  of  the  county 
seminaries.  But  circumstances  did  not  very  soon 
permit  the  application  of  this  aspiring  programme, 
even  with  the  aid  of  criminals  and  "slackers," 
and  it  was  more  than  fifty  years  before  all  the 
gradations  were  in  place. 

Illinois,  the  third  of  the  States  carved  out  of  the 
old  Indiana  Territory,  was  slower  than  the  other 
in  developing  her  institutions  of  higher  education, 
but  in  recent  years  she  has  splendidly  atoned  for 
earlier  deficiencies.  The  State  received  a  town 
ship  in  1818  as  a  birthday  present  from  the  nation 
and  inherited  another  township  from  its  parent, 
the  land  district  of  Kaskaskia.  But  the  Illinois 
legislators,  for  reasons  best  known  to  themselves, 
kept  the  funds  from  the  sale  of  these  lands  in  the 


164    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

State  treasury  for  nearly  forty  years  instead  of 
using  them  for  the  support  of  a  college,  university, 
or  "seminary  of  learning."  In  1857  the  accumu 
lated  funds  with  part  of  the  accrued  interest  were 
turned  over  to  the  State  Normal  University. 

The  University  of  Illinois  originated  in  a  plan 
for  an  industrial  university  proposed  in  a  speech 
at  a  farmers'  convention  at  Granville  in  1851  by 
Professor  J.  B.  Turner,  who,  if  not  the  father, 
was  at  least  the  furtherer  of  the  Morrill  Act. 
The  Illinois  Industrial  University  was  established 
at  Urbana  by  aid  of  the  Morrill  land  scrip.  The 
institution  subsequently  dropped  the  "Industrial" 
but  not  the  industry  and  is  now  one  of  the  most 
prosperous  of  the  State  Universities. 

In  Wisconsin  the  federal  land  grants  for  higher 
education  were  even  worse  mismanaged  than  in 
Illinois,  yet  the  State  University  at  Madison, 
founded  in  1848,  has  now  some  eight  thousand 
students  and  has  become  renowned  throughout 
the  world  for  its  active  cooperation  with  the 
people  and  the  Government  of  the  State  in  the 
promotion  of  its  agricultural  interests  and  in  the 
solution  of  its  administrative  problems. 

To  go  through  the  history  of  each  of  the  States 
in  turn  to  show  how  they  utilized  the  federal  land 


THE  WESTWARD  MOVEMENT         165 

grants  would  be  tedious;  their  early  mistakes  and 
final  achievements  are  much  the  same,  differing 
chiefly  in  degree.  But  an  exception  must  be 
noted  in  the  case  of  Texas  which,  entering  the 
union  as  an  independent  republic,  retained  its 
public  lands  and  so  was  enabled  to  make  more 
generous  provision  for  its  schools  and  university 
than  the  Federal  Government  had  done  in  the 
other  new  States.  The  University  of  Texas  has 
received  grants  of  over  two  million  acres. 

According  to  Huxley,  "no  system  of  public  edu 
cation  is  worth  the  name  of  national  unless  it  creates 
a  great  educational  ladder,  with  one  end  in  the 
gutter  and  the  other  in  the  university."  Such  a 
ladder  now  exists  in  all  of  the  States  outside  the 
original  thirteen.  The  ascent  is  practically  free 
and  in  most  cases  open  to  all  on  equal  terms  with 
out  regard  to  creed,  race,  or  sex.  Yet  the  aspiring 
student  is  not  confined  to  this  ladder,  but  may 
climb  others  if  he  prefers.  The  State  does  not  fear 
competition  and  has  permitted  and  encouraged  rival 
institutions  of  all  grades  to  be  established.  Private 
elementary  and  secondary  schools  are  not  so  com 
mon  in  the  West  as  in  the  East,  but  there  are  many 
independent  colleges  and  universities  in  all  the 
Western  States.  Though  founded  chiefly  by  the 


166    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

various  denominations,  these  institutions  make  no 
sectarian  discrimination  among  the  students  and 
frequently  not  even  in  the  faculty,  and  their 
charge  for  tuition  is  almost  as  low  as  in  the  State 
institutions.  Old  animosity  has  died  down,  and 
nowadays  the  denominational  colleges  are  usually 
on  friendly  terms  with  the  State.  The  State  Uni 
versity  is  usually  willing  to  concede  that  many  of 
these  colleges  can  give  as  good  an  undergraduate 
education  as  it  can,  and  the  denominational  college 
on  its  part  is  usually  willing  to  concede  that  it  cannot 
compete  with  the  State  institutions  in  the  facilities 
for  technical,  professional,  and  graduate  training. 
So  in  one  way  or  another  all  of  the  Western  and 
Southern  States,  and  some  of  the  Northeastern, 
have  established  their  own  universities  as  well  as 
normal  schools  and  agricultural  colleges,  some 
times  combined  and  sometimes  in  different  places. 
These  institutions  differ  widely  in  size  and  stand 
ing.  Some  are  small  and  weak,  doing  work  of  a 
low  order  and  being  periodically  upset  by  political 
disturbances ;  others  rival  the  largest  endowed  uni 
versities  in  income,  numbers,  and  the  work  of 
their  graduate  and  professional  schools.  They  are 
much  alike,  however,  in  their  general  character 
istics.  As  a  rule,  the  State  Universities  charge  no 


THE  WESTWARD  MOVEMENT         167 

tuition  except  perhaps  a  moderate  fee  in  the  pro 
fessional  schools  and  for  students  from  outside  the 
State.  They  usually  provide  professional  courses 
in  law,  medicine,  engineering,  and  the  like,  but 
none  in  theology.  The  residence  halls  or  dormi 
tories  which  form  a  prominent  feature  of  the  en 
dowed  colleges  are  not  so  common  and  sometimes 
altogether  absent  in  the  State  Universities.  These 
institutions  are  responsive  to  the  needs  of  the 
people  and  quick  to  provide  new  forms  of  voca 
tional  training.  They  extend  their  influence 
widely  beyond  their  walls  and  often  carry  on 
scientific,  legislative,  and  financial  investigations 
for  the  State  Government.  They  form  the  crown 
of  the  public  school  system  and  admit  to  some  de 
partments  graduates  from  any  reputable  high 
school,  giving  equal  opportunities  to  rich  and 
poor,  to  men  and  women.  The  American  State 
University  may  justly  be  regarded  as  constituting 
a  distinct  type  not  to  be  found  anywhere  else  in 
the  world. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE   RISE   OF   THE    STATE    UNIVERSITY 

Where  the  State  has  bestowed  education  the  man  who  accepts 
it  must  be  content  to  accept  it  merely  as  a  charity  unless  he  re 
turns  it  to  the  State  in  full,  in  the  shape  of  good  citizenship.  .  .  . 
Only  a  limited  number  of  us  can  ever  become  scholars  .  .  .  but 
we  can  all  be  good  citizens.  We  can  all  lead  a  life  of  action,  a  life 
of  endeavor,  a  life  that  is  to  be  judged  primarily  by  the  effort, 
somewhat  by  the  result,  along  the  lines  of  helping  the  growth  of 
what  is  right  and  decent  and  generous  and  lofty  in  our  several 
communities,  in  the  State,  in  the  Nation.  —  Theodore  Roosevelt. 

THE  idea  of  a  State  University  is  older  than  the 
States  themselves,  though  the  institution  was  slow 
in  developing  and  in  differentiating  itself  as  a  dis 
tinct  type.  At  first  most  of  the  colonial  universi 
ties  received  public  funds  and  were  under  govern 
mental  control.  The  first  constitutions  of  Penn 
sylvania,  North  Carolina,  and  Vermont,  in  the 
days  of  the  Revolution,  provided  for  universities. 
The  University  of  Georgia  was  organized  in  1785 
and  the  University  of  Tennessee  in  1794.  Any  of 
these  early  beginnings  might  have  developed  into 
the  typical  State  University;  but  the  honor  of  being 

168 


RISE  OF  THE  STATE  UNIVERSITY     169 

called  "the  mother  of  the  State  Universities"  was 
reserved  for  Michigan. 

The  germ  of  the  State  University  came  from 
France,  but  it  grew  up  under  German  influences. 
The  revolution  that  severed  the  political  bonds 
connecting  America  with  the  mother  country  also 
broke  the  thread  of  educational  traditions,  and 
American  educators  turned  from  their  English 
enemies  to  their  French  friends.  French  began  to 
be  taught  in  the  colleges.  John  Adams,  coming 
back  from  Paris  full  of  enthusiasm  for  French  edu 
cational  ideals,  embodied  them  in  the  Massachu 
setts  Constitution  of  1780  and  founded  the  Ameri 
can  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences.  Chevalier 
Quesnay  de  Beaurepaire,  who  came  over  in  1778 
to  fight  for  American  independence,  remained  to 
lay  the  corner-stone  of  an  Academic  des  Sciences  et 
Beaux  Arts  des  Etats-Unis  d'Amerique  at  Rich 
mond  in  1786  under  the  patronage  of  Jefferson 
and  many  other  distinguished  men  of  Virginia, 
Pennsylvania,  New  York,  and  France.  Quesnay 's 
academy  comprised  a  graduate  school,  a  museum, 
a  press,  and  commissions  to  cooperate  with  the 
Government  in  the  investigation  of  the  flora 
and  fauna  of  the  country  and  in  the  development 
of  its  mineral  resources.  Nothing  came  of  this 


170    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

scheme,  although  the  desired  objects  are  now  be 
ing  attained  in  a  similar  way  through  the  State 
Universities  and  the  national  bureaus  of  mining, 
geology,  fisheries,  agriculture,  and  ethnology. 

In  France  the  constructive  genius  of  the  Ency 
clopedists  was  supplemented  and  actualized  by 
the  practical  genius  of  Napoleon.  The  University 
of  France  as  established  in  1808  included  all  the 
colleges  and  schools  of  the  country  above  the 
elementary.  This,  as  we  have  seen,  was  the  idea 
which  Jefferson  had  in  mind  for  the  University  of 
Virginia  but  was  not  able  to  carry  out  in  its  en 
tirety.  It  was  the  idea  Jefferson  was  seeking  to 
realize  when  he  invited  Dupont  de  Nemours  to 
visit  him  at  Philadelphia  and  Monticello  and  to 
draw  up  a  plan  of  public  education.1  The  idea 
was  brought  to  New  York  by  John  Jay  and  was 
carried  out  by  Alexander  Hamilton  in  the  "Uni 
versity  of  the  State  of  New  York,"  which  corre 
sponds  most  nearly  to  the  French  cbnception  of  a 
university,  as  it  is  not  a  teaching  body  but  rather 
the  central  educational  office  of  the  State. 

1  Dupont's  plan  Sur  I' Education  Nationale  dans  les  Etats-Unis, 
published  in  1800,  provides  for  a  University  of  North  America 
to  embrace  primary  and  secondary  schools,  colleges,  and  profes 
sional  schools  of  medicine,  mining,  social  science,  law,  and  higher 
mathematics. 


RISE  OF  THE  STATE  UNIVERSITY     171 

But  of  all  the  seeds  from  the  French  tree  wafted 
across  the  Atlantic  that  which  fell  in  the  forests  of 
Michigan  brought  forth  most  abundantly.  There 
were  only  five  or  six  thousand  people,  French  and 
English,  scattered  over  this  vast  territory  when  in 
1817  the  Acting  Governor  and  two  Supreme  Court 
Judges  authorized  the  establishment  of  a  system 
of  education  modeled  after  Napoleon's  University 
of  France.  Judge  Woodward  drew  up  the  plan 
for  it  and  invented  the  nomenclature.  It  was  to  be 
called  "The  Catholepistemiad  or  University  of 
Michigania."  There  were  to  be  thirteen  didaxia 
or  professorships,  to  wit:  the  didaxia  of  Catholepis- 
temia  (universal  science),  of  Anthropoglossica 
(languages  and  literatures),  of  Mathematica,  of 
Physiognostica  (natural  history),  of  Physiosophica 
(physics),  of  Astronomia,  of  Chymia,  of  latrica 
(medicine),  of  (Economica  (economics),  of  Ethica, 
of  Polemitactica  (military  tactics),  of  Diegetica 
(history),  and  of  Ennceica  (philosophy  and  reli 
gion)  .  This  institution,  according  to  the  custom  of 
the  time,  was  to  be  supported  by  lotteries  as  well 
as  by  public  taxation.  Instruction  was  to  be  free 
to  those  not  having  adequate  means .  The ' '  Catho 
lepistemiad"  or  university  was  to  maintain  branch 
schools  or  academies  in  various  parts  of  the  territory 


172    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

and  some  of  these  were  actually  established.  The 
delicate  question  of  the  relations  of  the  rival 
races  and  religions  was  neatly  adjusted  by  giving 
seven  of  the  chairs  to  the  Reverend  John  Mon- 
teith,  a  Scotch  Presbyterian  minister  of  Detroit, 
and  the  other  six  to  Father  Gabriel  Richard,  a 
French  Catholic  priest. 

The  act  of  1821  relieved  the  institution  of  its 
fantastic  nomenclature  and  rigid  constitution  and 
it  seemed  likely  to  lapse  into  a  college  of  the  con 
ventional  type.  But  in  the  thirties  a  wave  of  Ger 
man  influence  swept  over  America  and  started 
what  is  known  as  "the  educational  renaissance." 
The  French  influence  had  prevailed  for  about  half 
a  century  but  accomplished  very  little  except  to 
start  the  Universities  of  Virginia,  New  York,  and 
Michigan.  The  German  influence  lasted  a  century 
and  was  much  more  powerful;  in  the  East  it  trans 
formed  the  colleges  into  universities  and  in  the 
West  it  shaped  the  State  Universities  and  the 
school  system  connected  with  them.  The  stream 
of  American  graduates  to  German  universities 
which  continued  without  cessation  up  to  the  Great 
War  may  be  said  to  have  started  in  1815  when 
George  Ticknor  went  to  Gottingen.  Ticknor  was 
a  Dartmouth  man  living  in  Boston  when  the  read- 


RISE  OF  THE  STATE  UNIVERSITY    173 

ing  of  Madame  de  StaeTs  work  on  Germany  opened 
his  eyes  to  the  opportunities  afforded  by  the  uni 
versities  of  that  country,  and  he  determined  to  go 
there.  But  how  could  he  learn  the  language? 
There  were  few  German  books  to  be  had  in  Massa 
chusetts,  and  he  could  not  even  find  a  native  Ger 
man  competent  to  instruct  him.  He  heard  that 
there  was  a  German  dictionary  in  New  Hampshire 
and  sent  for  it.  With  such  equipment  he  went  to 
Gottingen.  He  was  followed  by  Edward  Everett, 
who  found  the  facilities  there  far  superior  to  those 
of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  and  wrote  back  to  Har 
vard  to  send  on  a  scholar.  In  response  to  this  sug 
gestion  the  university  sent  George  Bancroft.  Dr. 
J.  G.  Cogswell,  who  went  to  Gottingen  in  1815, 
also  visited  the  school  of  Pestalozzi  at  Yverdun 
and  the  school  of  Fellenberg  at  Hofwyl,  and  when 
he  came  home  he  started  a  school  on  their  prin 
ciples  at  Round  Hill  near  Northampton,  Mas 
sachusetts.  Bancroft,  finding  that  his  alma  mater, 
Harvard,  would  not  allow  him  to  lecture  on  his 
tory  although  he  had  that  privilege  at  Gottingen 
and  Berlin,  joined  Cogswell  in  launching  the 
Round  Hill  School,  which  ran  for  sixteen  years. 
Ticknor  on  his  return  took  a  chair  at  Harvard  and 
tried  to  introduce  the  German  elective  system,  but 


174    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

the  time  was  not  yet  ripe  and  nobody  listened  to 
him.  As  a  result  of  his  persistency  some  slight 
freedom  in  the  choice  of  studies  was  allowed  to  the 
students,  but  many  years  passed  before  Harvard 
was  made  completely  elective.  Jefferson,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  much  taken  with  Ticknor's  ideas 
and  tried  to  get  him  to  come  to  the  University  of 
Virginia,  where  the  elective  system  was  established 
at  the  start. 

Up  to  1850  about  a  hundred  Americans  had 
studied  at  German  universities,1  among  them 
Henry  W.  Longfellow,  John  Lothrop  Motley,  and 
Theodore  Dwight  Woolsey,  President  of  Yale. 
After  that  date  there  was  a  rapid  increase  in  the 
numbers  of  American  students  at  German  universi 
ties,  where  they  were  more  hospitably  received 
than  in  the  British  universities  and  were  provided 
with  better  opportunities  for  graduate  study  and 
research.  The  influence  of  German  literature  and 
philosophy  upon  New  England  thought  was  strong, 
but  the  New  England  colleges  were  too  set  in  their 
ways  to  be  radically  reshaped.  In  the  West  the 
State  Universities  were  young  when  the  German 

1  The  complete  list  is  published  in  B.  A.  Hinsdale's  "Notes  on 
the  History  of  Foreign  Influences  upon  Education  in  the  United 
States"  in  the  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Education,  1898. 
See  also  Thwing's  History  of  Higher  Education  in  America,  p.  320. 


RISE  OF  THE  STATE  UNIVERSITY     175 

influence  began  to  prevail,  and  they  were  largely 
molded  by  it.  The  chief  instrumentality  was  the 
report  on  the  Prussian  school  system  made  by 
Victor  Cousin  to  the  French  Minister  of  Public 
Instruction  in  1837.  This  report  Sir  William 
Hamilton  took  as  the  basis  of  his  plea  for  university 
reform  in  Great  Britain,  but  he  failed  to  accom 
plish  his  purpose.  At  a  later  day  the  efforts  of 
Matthew  Arnold  to  introduce  German  ideas  into 
English  schools  likewise  proved  ineffectual.  But 
in  America,  through  the  medium  of  Horace  Mann, 
President  Tappan  of  Michigan,  President  Way- 
land  of  Brown,  W.  T.  Harris,  the  Commissioner  of 
Education,  President  White  of  Cornell,  and  others, 
the  German  system  helped  to  effect  a  radical  trans 
formation  of  the  schools  and  colleges  in  the  greater 
part  of  the  United  States. 

Let  us  return,  for  a  concrete  illustration,  to  the 
University  of  Michigan.  The  Act  of  1837  com 
pletely  reorganized  the  public  school  system  on  the 
Prussian  plan,  coordinated  elementary,  secondary, 
and  university  education,  and  brought  it  under 
governmental  control.  It  stipulated  that  the  fee 
for  admission  to  the  University  should  never 
exceed  ten  dollars  and  that  no  tuition  should  be 
charged  to  Michigan  students.  High  schools  and 


176    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

minor  colleges,  corresponding  to  the  German 
gymnasia,  were  to  be  established  as  branches  of  the 
University  in  various  parts  of  the  State,  and  there 
were  to  be  institutions  for  the  education  of  women, 
for  the  training  of  teachers,  and  for  instruction  in 
agriculture.  Under  th:s  system  a  normal  school 
on  the  Prussian  plan  was  opened  at  Ypsilanti  in 
1850,  following  in  this  field  Massachusetts  (1839) 
and  New  York  (1844).  The  agricultural  college 
founded  at  Lansing  in  1857  was  the  first  of  its  kind 
in  this  country.  Today  every  State  has  one  or 
more  of  these  institutions. 

But  in  one  respect  the  University  of  Michigan, 
like  the  University  of  Virginia,  followed  the  Ger- 
man  model  too  closely:  it  had  no  president.  The 
rectoral  plan,  though  apparently  the  more  demo 
cratic,  does  not  seem  to  work  in  America,  and  it 
was  not  until  1851,  when  the  University  of  Mich 
igan  got  a  president  —  and  a  somewhat  autocratic 
one  —  that  the  institution  became  securely  pros 
perous.  Henry  P.  Tappan  left  the  chair  of  philoso 
phy  in  the  College  of  the  City  of  New  York  to 
accept  the  call  to  Michigan  because  he  wanted  a 
chance  to  work  out  the  ideas  he  had  acquired  in 
Germany.  The  first  catalogue  issued  under  his 
administration  contains  the  announcement  of  bold 


RISE  OF  THE  STATE  UNIVERSITY     177 

departures  in  the  direction  of  freedom  of  choice 
and  graduate  study: 

An  institution  cannot  deserve  the  name  of  a  university 
which  does  not  aim  in  all  the  material  of  learning,  in 
the  professorships  it  establishes,  and  in  the  whole  scope 
of  its  provisions,  to  make  it  possible  for  every  student 
to  study  what  he  pleases  and  to  any  extent  he  pleases. 
Nor  can  it  be  regarded  as  consistent  with  the  spirit 
of  a  free  country  to  deny  to  its  citizens  the  possibilities 
of  the  highest  knowledge. 

To  appreciate  the  daring  of  this  step  it  must  be 
remembered  that  at  that  time  Harvard  had  only 
three  graduate  students  and  that  the  first  graduate 
school  in  America  had  been  started  at  Yale  in  1847, 
only  five  years  before.  Forty-one  years  after 
President  Tappan  had  declared  that  the  people 
had  a  right  to  free  graduate  instruction  at  public 
expense  we  find  President  Eliot  of  Harvard  argu 
ing  against  State  support  of  higher  education  of 
any  sort.1  That  this  is  the  prevailing  opinion  in 
the  East  today  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  State 
Universities  are  mostly  confined  to  the  West. 

President  Tappan's  proposed  reforms  were  too 
ambitious  for  complete  accomplishment;  but  he 

1  In  the  famous  debate  before  the  National  Educational  Asso 
ciation  in  1893  when  John  W.  Hoyt  urged  a  national  university. 


178    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

introduced  lectures  and  research  work  and  ex 
tended  the  elective  system  which  had  been  started 
at  Michigan  in  1837.  The  State  Legislature  in 
1851  passed  an  act  requiring  the  regents  of  the 
University  to  provide  instruction  for  those  who 
did  not  want  to  take  the  ancient  languages.  This 
was  carried  out  by  establishing  a  modern  course 
leading  to  the  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Science,  which 
had  been  granted  for  the  first  time  at  the  Law 
rence  Scientific  School  of  Harvard  the  year  before. 
The  German  seminar  method  of  teaching  history 
was  later  adopted  at  Michigan  University  by 
Charles  Kendall  Adams  and  Andrew  D.  White, 
both  afterwards  presidents  of  Cornell  University. 
The  plan  for  the  coordination  of  the  high  schools 
and  university,  though  foreshadowed  in  the  scheme 
of  1817,  was  not  worked  out  until  1870.  In  their 
present  form  the  high  schools  are  independent  of 
the  universities  as  far  as  administration  is  con 
cerned  and  are  not  supported  by  them;  but  the 
high  schools  are  inspected  by  university  officers 
and  the  diplomas  of  accredited  schools  are  ac 
cepted  in  lieu  of  entrance  examinations.  The  final 
examinations  of  the  accredited  high  schools  thus 
correspond  to  the  Abiturientenexamen  of  Germany 
and  the  passage  to  the  university  is  made  as  easy 


RISE  OF  THE  STATE  UNIVERSITY     179 

and  natural  as  the  passage  from  the  seventh  to  the 
eighth  grade.  The  diploma  system  has  been 
adopted  by  all  the  State  Universities  and  has  ex 
tended  to  all  the  endowed  colleges  except  a  few 
in  the  East. 

The  admission  of  women  remains  as  one  other 
step  to  be  considered  in  the  evolution  of  the  State 
University  system.  This  innovation,  like  other 
educational  reforms,  was  instigated  by  the  people 
rather  than  by  the  authorities.  As  early  as  1858 
the  Michigan  Legislature  had  declared  that  the 
high  objects  for  which  the  university  was  organized 
could  never  be  fully  attained  until  women  were 
admitted,  but  it  was  not  until  1870  that  the  regents 
decided  that  no  person  of  requisite  literary  and 
moral  qualifications  should  be  excluded  from  the 
State  University.  By  that  time  the  Universities  of 
Iowa,  Kansas,  Indiana,  and  Minnesota  were  co 
educational;  those  of  Illinois,  California,  and 
Missouri  adopted  the  system  in  the  same  year  as 
Michigan.  All  the  State  Universities  except  those 
of  Georgia,  Florida,  and  Virginia  are  now  co 
educational.  Ezra  Cornell,  in  accordance  with  his 
Quaker  principles,  was  anxious  to  give  equal  privi 
leges  to  women  in  the  university  that  he  founded 
in  1865,  but  for  a  time  he  was  overruled,  and  it 


180    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

was  not  until  1872  that  coeducation  was  intro 
duced  there  by  President  White,  formerly  of  the 
University  of  Michigan. 

The  State  Universities  and  other  institutions 
have  imitated  one  another  until  now  they  are  in 
most  respects  very  much  alike.  Nor  can  any 
sharp  distinction  be  drawn  between  them  on  the 
grounds  that  one  class  is  supported  by  the  State 
and  the  other  by  endowments  and  tuition.  Cor 
nell  University,  for  instance,  receives  the  Federal 
and  State  funds  for  agriculture  and  mechanic  arts 
and  is  a  State  University  in  type  though  on  a  pri 
vate  foundation.  The  University  of  Michigan, 
which  is  here  used  as  a  type  of  the  State  Univer 
sity,  did  not  receive  a  penny  from  the  State  until 
1867,  fifty  years  after  its  foundation.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  appropriations  of  the  General 
Court  of  Massachusetts  to  Harvard  College  from 
its  founding  in  1636  to  1786  reached  a  total  of 
$115,797,  an  amount  equal  to  half  a  million  dollars 
at  the  present  time. 


CHAPTER 

CATHOLIC  EDUCATION  IN  AMERICA 

The  greatest  religious  fact  in  the  United  States  today  is  the 
Catholic  School  System,  maintained  without  any  aid  except  from 
the  people  who  love  it.  —  Archbishop  Spalding. 

A  SEPARATE  chapter  in  this  survey  of  American 
education  must  be  devoted  to  the  training  carried 
on  by  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  for  its  history 
has  been  distinct  and  its  course  of  development  in 
one  respect  the  opposite  from  that  of  the  rest  of  the 
country.  Most  American  colleges  were  started 
under  the  auspices  of  some  particular  religious  de 
nomination.  Those  that  were  Protestant,  how 
ever,  have  in  the  majority  of  cases  become  free 
from  church  control  and  usually  retain  little  to 
distinguish  them  from  those  of  other  sects  or  from 
government  institutions.  The  elementary  and 
secondary  education  of  Protestant  children  is  now 
almost  wholly  carried  on  by  public  schools  or  by 
private  institutions  having  no  sectarian  affiliations. 
But  while  this  change  has  taken  place  the  Roman 

181 


182    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

Catholics  have  been  developing  in  the  last  fifty 
years  an  independent  school  system  of  their  own, 
entirely  under  ecclesiastical  control  and  covering 
all  grades  from  the  kindergarten  to  the  university 
and  professional  schools. 

The  Catholic  population  of  the  United  States, 
scanty  at  first,  has  been  largely  increased  by 
annexation  and  by  immigration.  When  Father 
Jogues,  the  illustrious  French  Jesuit  of  Canada, 
visited  Manhattan  Island  in  1644,  he  found  only 
two  Catholics  —  an  Irishman  and  a  Portuguese 
woman.  In  1789,  when  the  hierarchy  was  con 
stituted  in  the  United  States  by  the  consecration  of 
the  Right  Reverend  John  Carroll  as  Bishop  of  the 
See  of  Baltimore,  there  were  about  15,800  Catho 
lics  in  Maryland,  7,000  in  Pennsylvania,  and  a  few 
thousand  scattered  among  the  other  Sta/tes.  But 
the  territories  subsequently  annexed  —  Florida, 
Louisiana,  Texas,  Arizona,  New  Mexico,  Califor 
nia,  Porto  Rico,  and  the  Philippines  —  were  Cath 
olic  in  so  far  as  they  had  been  settled  or  christian 
ized  at  all.  Of  the  immigrants  who  poured  into 
the  country  in  a  swelling  stream  up  to  the  out 
break  of  the  Great  War  the  Irish,  Germans,  Poles, 
Italians,  Czechs,  Croats,  and  Lithuanians  were 
largely  Catholic.  In  1919,  according'  to  the 


CATHOLIC  EDUCATION  IN  AMERICA  183 

Official  Catholic  Directory,  the  Catholic  popu 
lation  of  the  United  States  numbered  17,549,324. 

Catholic  education  in  America  antedates  Protes 
tant.  Before  schools  were  opened  in  New  Eng 
land,  the  Franciscans  had  missions  in  Florida  and 
New  Mexico.  The  Florida  church  dates  back  to 
1565,  almost  to  the  time  of  the  Council  of  Trent. 
By  1634  there  were  35  Franciscan  priests  conduct 
ing  44  missions,  with  30,000  Indian  converts,  some 
of  whom  were  taught  reading  and  writing.  There  is 
some  record  of  a  classical  school  for  Spanish  children 
at  St.  Augustine  as  early  as  1606.  But  the  Apa- 
lachees  went  on  the  warpath  in  1703  and  wiped  out 
the  missions.  In  1736  Bishop  Tejada  reopened 
the  seminary  at  St.  Augustine,  but  again  there 
came  Indian  wars,  and  at  the  time  when  Florida 
was  annexed  by  the  United  States  there  was  little 
left  of  the  Catholic  colony. 

The  Indians  of  New  Mexico  were  of  a  more 
tractable  type  than  those  in  Florida.  They  were 
already  settled  in  pueblos  when  the  white  man 
entered  and  had  developed  simple  forms  of  agri 
culture  and  domestic  arts.  With  the  expedition  of 
Don  Juan  de  Onate  in  1598  into  what  is  now  the 
State  of  New  Mexico  went  several  Franciscan 
friars.  Others  followed,  settling  in  the  pueblos 


184    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

and  teaching  the  natives  to  sing  and  to  pray  and  to 
work.  Under  such  direction  they  developed  not  a 
little  skill  at  brickmaking  and  carpentry,  and  built 
their  own  churches  with  curiously  carved  roofs  and 
painted  walls.  By  1630  missions  had  been  estab 
lished  in  90  pueblos  comprising  a  population  of 
60,000.  There  were  fifty  Franciscans  in  New 
Mexico,  and  many  of  their  convents  had  schools 
attached  where  the  sacristan  of  the  church  served 
as  schoolmaster.  But  in  1680  the  Indians  re 
volted,  determined  to  root  out  the  Spanish  civili 
zation.  They  massacred  the  friars  and  demolished 
the  churches  and  schools.  Ten  years  later  there 
was  not  a  Spaniard  left  within  the  limits  of 
New  Mexico* 

In  the  north  the  Catholic  missionaries  were  no 
less  courageous  and  enterprising.  As  early  as  1635 
the  Jesuits  at  Quebec  had  founded  a  college  which 
the  great  Bishop  Laval  a  few  years  later  declared 
to  be  almost  the  equal  of  similar  institutions 
in  France.  Soon  other  schools  followed,  among 
which  the  Ursuline  convent  was  particularly  note 
worthy  for  devotion  and  efficiency.  Laval  sought 
to  civilize  the  Indians  by  educating  their  children 
with  those  of  the  French.  With  this  end  in  view 
he  founded  the  Quebec  Seminary  in  1663.  Besides 


CATHOLIC  EDUCATION  IN  AMERICA  185 

the  Jesuit  priests  and  the  Ursuline  nuns,  there  were 
the  Sulpicians  and  the  Recollets  to  care  for  the 
spiritual  welfare  and  education  of  the  northern 
colonists.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  at  the  time 
when  Harvard  was  being  established  by  Protes 
tants  in  New  England,  the  foundations  of  Laval 
University  were  being  laid  by  Catholics  at  Quebec. 
Out  of  these  two  institutions,  so  founded  and  so 
courageously  nurtured,  there  grew  up  in  time  two 
radically  different  systems  of  education,  both  of 
far-reaching  influence  in  the  later  development  of 
the  two  countries. 

In  California  the  Franciscans  were  more  suc 
cessful  than  in  Florida  because  they  adopted  the 
Jesuit  system  of  segregation.  So  long  as  the  In 
dian  converts  remained  in  contact  with  the  hea 
then  population  of  their  native  villages  they  could 
not  be  kept  constant  to  the  requirements  of  the 
new  life,  for  the  power  of  the  medicine  man 
counteracted  the  persuasion  of  the  priest.  The 
Jesuits  of  Paraguay,  in  order  to  overcome  the  evil 
influence  of  the  environment,  formed  separate 
industrial  colonies  where  they  could  train  the 
Indians  under  their  exclusive  guidance  and  control. 

In  Lower  California  the  Jesuits  had  started 
mission  work  as  early  as  1697,  but  in  1767,  when 


186    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

Charles  III  ordered  the  expulsion  of  the  Jesuits 
from  all  the  Spanish  dominions,  they  were  re 
placed  by  Franciscan  friars.  The  Franciscans  in 
their  turn  relinquished  the  peninsula  to  the  Do 
minicans  and  entered  upon  the  new  field  of  Upper 
California,  where  Father  Junipero  Serra  estab 
lished  a  mission  at  San  Diego  in  1769.  The  mis 
sions  so  multiplied  and  prospered  that  at  the  time 
of  their  suppression  in  1834  there  was  a  chain  of 
them  stretching  north  for  700  miles  and  sheltering 
more  than  30,000  converts.  Under  direction  of 
the  padres  the  Indians  constructed  the  mission 
buildings  and  furniture  now  so  much  admired  and 
imitated.  In  these  Catholic  colonies  the  Indian 
children  and  converts  were  taught  to  recite  in  their 
own  tongues  the  prayers,  creeds,  and  command 
ments,  and  —  what  was  much  more  difficult  — 
they  were  taught  to  work.  Whatever  their  incli 
nations  may  have  been,  the  Indians  worked  to  such 
good  effect  that  ere  long  these  little  communities 
grew  wealthy.  The  annual  output  of  cattle  and 
crops  at  the  time  the  missions  were  seized  by  the 
State  was  worth  more  than  $2,000,000. 

At  first  the  friars,  being  more  anxious  to  make 
Christians  than  Spaniards  out  of  the  Indians, 
confined  their  instruction  to  the  native  languages 


CATHOLIC  EDUCATION  IN  AMERICA  187 

and  paid  little  attention  to  orders  issued  by  Gov 
ernor  Borica  in  1795  that  they  teach  Spanish 
exclusively  in  the  missions.  Borica  therefore  de 
termined  to  start  a  public  school  system  independ 
ent  of  the  clergy.  He  opened  the  first  of  these 
schools  in  the  public  granary  at  San  Jose  with  a 
retired  sergeant  as  schoolmaster.1  It  was  not 
easy,  however,  to  find  teachers,  for  at  that  time  the 
Spanish  population  of  California  numbered  less 
than  a  thousand  souls,  and  few  of  the  soldiers  could 
read  or  write. 

When  Mexico  threw  off  the  Spanish  yoke,  the 
missions  in  California  as  well  as  in  Mexico  were 
declared  secularized.  San  Miguel,  the  last  of  the 
California  missions,  was  sold  out  by  the  last  of  the 
governors  on  July  4,  1846,  only  three  days  before 
the  American  flag  was  raised  over  Monterey. 
"The  flag  of  the  United  States  appeared  ten  years 
too  late  to  save  the  mission  property  from  the 
rapacity  of  unscrupulous  greed  and  the  Indians 
from  dispersion.  What  remained  was  restored  to 
the  Church  by  order  of  the  United  States  Courts."2 

The  missions  in  the  Californias  had  been  started 

1  Bancroft's  History  of  California,  vol.  i,  p.  643. 

2  Catholic  Educational  Work  in  Early  California,  by  the  Reverend 
Zephyrin  Engelhardt,  O.  F.  M.,  in  Proceedings  of  the  Catholic 
Educational  Association  (1918). 


I 

188    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

and  continuously  aided  by  a  financial  foundation 
known  as  the  Pious  Fund,  for  which  the  Jesuits 
had  collected  the  first  contributions  in  1697. 
When  Mexico  became  independent,  however,  its 
Government  appropriated  the  Pious  Fund,  which 
then  amounted  to  about  two  million  dollars,  and 
promised  to  pay  interest  at  six  per  cent.  But  after 
Upper  California  was  taken  over  by  the  United 
States,  Mexico  refused  to  pay  anything  on  that 
part  of  the  fund  which  belonged  by  right  to  the 
Church  in  Upper  California.  For  fifty  years  the 
United  States  pressed  this  claim  against  Mexico 
and  finally  referred  it  to  the  Permanent  Court  of  Ar 
bitration  at  The  Hague,  which  in  1902  decided  in 
favor  of  the  United  States.  Mexico  was  ordered  by 
the  court  to  pay  annually  $43,050.99  and  interest 
in  arrears  to  the  amount  of  $1,420,682.67. 

In  New  Orleans  under  French  rule  elementary 
education  was  begun  by  Father  Cecil,  a  Capuchin, 
who  opened  a  parish  school  for  boys  in  1722,  and 
five  years  later  ten  Ursuline  Sisters  started  a  con 
vent  school  for  girls.  The  transfer  of  the  Louisi 
ana  Territory  to  the  United  States  in  1804  excited 
alarm  in  the  minds  of  the  Sisters,  especially  since 
Jefferson  was  supposed  to  share  the  political  and 
religious  views  of  the  French  revolutionists.  But 


CATHOLIC  EDUCATION  IN  AMERICA  189 

when  the  Mother  Superior  wrote  to  President  Jef 
ferson  to  ask  protection,  she  received  the  following 
reassuring  reply:  "Whatever  diversity  of  shade 
may  appear  in  the  religious  opinions  of  our  fellow 
citizens,  the  charitable  objects  of  your  Institution 
cannot  be  indifferent  to  any;  and  its  furtherance  of 
the  wholesome  purposes  of  society  by  training  up 
its  younger  members  in  the  way  they  should  go. 
can  not  fail  to  insure  it  the  patronage  of  the 
Government  it  is  under.  Be  assured  it  will  meet 
with  all  the  protection  my  office  can  give  it." 

These  schools  established  in  the  Spanish  and 
French  possessions  for  the  Indians  or  for  the 
children  of  the  colonists  were,  however,  quite  apart 
from  the  main  stream  of  Catholic  education.  This 
had  its  real  origin  in  Maryland.  With  the  first 
colonists  sent  out  by  Lord  Baltimore  in  1634  came 
Father  Andrew  White,  a  learned  Jesuit  who  set 
himself  to  study  the  Indian  language  and  prepared 
a  grammar  and  catechism.  But  after  the  Clai- 
borne-Ingle  rebellion  ten  years  later  the  Jesuits 
were  deported  in  chains. 

A  school  which  had  been  started  in  1640  among 
the  Catholics  of  Newtown,  Maryland,  was  in  1653 
endowed  by  the  will  of  Edward  Cotton,  a  rich 
planter,  with  all  his  "female  Cattle  and  their 


190    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

Increase  for  Ever"  and  with  "one  thousand 
pounds  Weight  of  good  sound  Merchantable  leaf 
Tobacco  and  Cask."  This  school  was,  in  1677, 
developed  into  a  Jesuit  "school  for  humanities" 
in  order  "to  bring  those  regions,  which  foreigners 
have  unjustly  called  ferocious,  to  a  higher  state  of 
virtue  and  civilization."  The  Jesuits  also  opened 
a  school  in  New  York  City  in  1684  near  the  corner 
of  Broadway  and  Wall  Street,  or  the  site  of  Trinity 
Church.  A  few  years  later  these  schools  at  New 
York  and  Newtown  were  suppressed.  This  period 
of  persecution  lasted  a  century  until  the  overthrow 
of  British  rule.  In  1704  a  law  was  passed  in  Mary 
land  providing  that  if  any  persons  professing  to  be 
of  the  Church  of  Rome  should  keep  school,  or  take 
upon  themselves  the  education,  government,  or 
boarding  of  youth,  at  any  place  in  the  province, 
upon  conviction,  such  offenders  should  be  trans 
ported  to  England  to  undergo  the  penalties  pro 
vided  there  by  Statutes  11  and  12,  William  III, 
"for  the  further  preventing  the  growth  of  Popery." 
Rich  Catholics  nevertheless  tried  to  maintain 
the  faith  in  their  families  by  the  sub  rosa  employ 
ment  of  Jesuit  tutors  —  although  this  subjected 
them  to  a  fine  of  40  shillings  a  day  —  and  by  send 
ing  their  sons  abroad  under  aliases  to  the  Belgian 


CATHOLIC  EDUCATION  IN  AMERICA  191 

College  of  St.  Omer,  although  this  made  them 
liable  to  a  penalty  of  500  pounds.  Even  the  im 
portation  of  an  "Irish  Papist  servant"  involved 
a  duty  of  40  shillings  which  went  to  the  support  of 
schools  exclusively  under  the  control  of  the  Church 
of  England. 

In  1706  the  Jesuits  founded  a  preparatory  school 
at  Bohemia  Manor,  in  the  most  remote  corner  of 
Maryland,  close  to  the  Pennsylvania  line.  This 
institution  developed  into  a  classical  college,  but  it 
was  closed  in  1765  and  today  its  very  site  is  in 
question.  Yet  among  the  pupils  enrolled  in  this 
wilderness  school  were  "Jacky"  Carroll,  after 
wards  Archbishop  of  Baltimore,  and  his  cousin, 
Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton,  whom  every  school 
boy  knows  as  the  best  penman  among  the  signers 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

The  Revolution  inaugurated  a  new  era  of  reli 
gious  freedom.  John  Carroll,  who  had  become 
prefect  of  the  Jesuit  College  of  Bruges,  returned 
to  the  United  States  and  became  in  1789  the  first 
bishop  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  America. 
In  1791  he  founded  Georgetown  College,  which 
became  the  leading  Jesuit  university  of  the  United 
States.  The  second  Catholic  college  in  America 
was  Mount  St.  Mary's  at  Emmitsburg,  Maryland, 


192    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

which  was  founded  by  the  Sulpicians  in  1808. 
America  has  been  the  gainer  by  every  outburst  of 
intolerance  in  Europe  and  has  often  found  its  most 
valuable  men  among  those  who  were  thought  unfit 
to  live  in  their  native  land.  The  outcast  dissenters 
of  England  founded  New  England.  The  Hugue 
nots  from  France  have  given  to  America  many  of 
her  foremost  men  of  science.  So  likewise,  when 
the  Catholic  churches  and  schools  were  suppressed 
by  the  French  Revolution,  the  expelled  clergy  gave 
a  great  impetus  to  Catholic  education  in  the 
United  States. 

The  Society  of  St.  Sulpice,  which  had  been 
founded  in  Paris  in  1642  for  the  education  of 
ecclesiastics,  was  among  the  victims  of  the  French 
Revolution.  Four  of  the  Sulpicians  came  to  Balti 
more  in  1791.  One  of  them,  Father  Flaget,  later 
became  the  first  bishop  in  Kentucky.  Another, 
Father  Richard,  went  to  Detroit,  where  he  set  up 
the  first  press  there,  printed  the  first  newspaper, 
and  took  part  in  the  founding  of  the  University 
of  Michigan,  the  "  Catholepistemiad "  already 
described.  A  third,  the  Reverend  William  Du- 
bourg,  became  president  of  Georgetown  Academy, 
founded  St.  Mary's  Seminary  at  Baltimore,  and, 
when  he  became  Bishop  of  Louisiana  in  1815» 


CATHOLIC  EDUCATION  IN  AMERICA  193 

brought    over    six    religious    orders    for    pioneer 
educational  work  west  of  the  Mississippi. 

St.  Mary's,  Baltimore,  was  at  first  a  failure. 
In  1791  it  started  with  five  students  but  in  a  few 
years  the  attendance  fell  to  none.  When  Napo 
leon  restored  the  Church,  Father  Emery,  Supe 
rior  General  of  the  Sulpicians,  determined  to  call  all 
the  fathers  back  to  France.  But  Bishop  Carroll 
begged  him  to  allow  them  to  remain.  The  ques 
tion  was  therefore  referred  to  Pope  Pius  VII.  The 
Pope  in  his  wisdom  said  to  Father  Emery:  "My 
son,  let  that  seminary  remain.  It  will  bear  fruit 
in  its  own  time."  The  Pope's  faith  was  eventu 
ally  fulfilled,  for  St.  Mary's  became  the  largest 
and  most  influential  of  Catholic  seminaries  and  by 
1910  had  supplied  over  1800  priests  and  30  bishops 
to  the  Church  in  America.  The  founder  of  St. 
Mary's,  Father  Dubourg,  while  on  a  visit  to  New 
York  met  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Ann  Seton,  a  widow  who 
had  been  converted  to  Catholicism  and  was  zealous 
for  service  in  her  new  faith.  Father  Dubourg 
induced  her  to  come  to  Maryland  to  start  a  school 
for  girls.  Joined  by  other  pious  women,  she 
formed  in  1809  an  organization  of  Sisters  of  Char 
ity  on  a  farm  near  Emmitsburg.  Later  on  it  was 

decided    to  affiliate  with    the  French  Sisters   of 
13 


194    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

Charity  of  St.  Vincent  de  Paul.  The  order  grew 
rapidly  and  by  1850  had  established  fifty-eight 
schools  in  various  States. 

The  Sisters  of  the  Visitation,  another  widespread 
teaching  order  of  women,  started  in  America  at 
about  the  same  time  and  place.  A  young  Irish 
lady,  Miss  Alice  Lalor,  came  with  two  widows  to 
Georgetown  in  1799  at  the  invitation  of  Father 
Neale,  President  of  Georgetown  College,  to  open  a 
school  for  girls  which  subsequently  developed  into 
a  convent  and  academy  of  the  Visitation  Order  of 
St.  Francis  de  Sales. 

Next  to  Maryland,  Pennsylvania  had  the  largest 
Catholic  population  in  colonial  days,  for  the  Quak 
ers  were  more  tolerant  than  the  Episcopalians  or 
the  Puritans.  While  the  Catholics  met  with  per 
secution  in  Maryland,  they  found  full  religious 
freedom  and  even  sympathy  on  the  Pennsylvania 
side  of  the  line.  Protestants  aided  in  building 
Father  Schneider's  first  church  at  Goshenhoppen 
and  sent  their  children  to  the  school  that  he  opened 
in  1741  in  a  two-story  frame  house.  It  was  indeed 
an  opportunity  not  to  be  neglected,  for  there  was 
no  other  school  in  the  settlement  and  it  is  not  every 
child  who  can  learn  his  A  B  C's  from  a  former 
Rector  Magnificus  of  Heidelberg  University,  as 


CATHOLIC  EDUCATION  IN  AMERICA  195 

was  the  Reverend  Theodore  Schneider.  In  Phila 
delphia  in  1781  St,  Mary's  parish  bought  an  old 
Quaker  schoolhouse  and  opened  therein  the  mother 
school  of  all  the  Catholic  parochial  schools  in  the 
English-speaking  States. 

One  of  the  four  French  Sulpicians  who  came  to 
Baltimore  in  1791  was  Stephen  Theodore  Badin, 
the  first  priest  to  be  ordained  within  the  thirteen 
original  States.  He  was  sent  immediately  after 
ward  to  the  "dark  and  bloody  ground"  of  Ken 
tucky,  although  he  was  only  twenty-five  years  old 
and  knew  but  a  few  words  of  English.  Here  he 
labored  alone  for  fourteen  years,  an  austere  and 
indefatigable  priest,  living  largely  in  the  saddle  as 
he  visited  the  widely  scattered  families.  He  was 
joined  in  1806  by  the  saintly  Father  Nerinckx  who 
had  been  educated  at  the  Belgian  universities  of 
Louvain  and  Malines  and  had  been  driven  out 
by  the  Revolution.  Father  Nerinckx  was  a  true 
mystic  from  the  Land  of  Mystics  but  withal  practi 
cal,  and  he  found  in  the  Kentucky  wilderness  a 
fertile  field.  He  was  strong  enough  to  roll  logs  for 
his  own  churches  and  to  master  a  bully  single- 
handed.  He  and  Father  Badin  built  at  Bardstown 
the  log  cabin,  sixteen  feet  square,  which  served  in 
1811  as  the  episcopal  palace  for  the  reception  of 


196    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

Bishop  Flaget,  whose  see  embraced  the  whole 
northwestern  territory  of  the  United  States  al 
though  it  contained  only  a  thousand  Catholic 
families.  In  1812  Father  Nerinckx  got  together  a 
group  of  women  willing  to  devote  their  lives  to  the 
Christian  training  of  girls  and  he  organized  them  at 
Little  Loretto  as  "The  Society  of  the  Friends  of 
Mary  Sorrowing  at  the  Foot  of  the  Cross  of  Our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ."  The  order  is  commonly 
known  as  the  "Sisters  of  Loretto,"  from  the  Santa 
Casa  or  Holy  House  in  Nazareth  where  the  Virgin 
Mary  was  born  and  which,  according  to  tradition, 
had  been  carried  away  by  angels  in  1291  and  placed 
first  in  Dalmatia  and  later  at  Loretto,  Italy.  Miss 
Anne  Rhodes,  the  first  superioress  of  the  com 
munity,  provided  the  funds  for  its  establishment 
by  the  donation  of  a  slave  who  was  sold  by  Father 
Nerinckx  for  $450.  The  Lorettines,  inspired  by 
the  zeal  of  their  founder,  increased  their  numbers 
and  colonized  until  within  a  dozen  years  they  had 
six  schools  containing  250  girls. 

Two  other  teaching  communities  of  women  origi 
nated  in  Kentucky  at  this  time.  Father  David,  a 
Sulpician  who  came  with  Bishop  Flaget,  organized 
the  Sisters  of  Charity  of  Nazareth  near  Bards- 
town.  The  Dominican  Father  Wilson  organized 


CATHOLIC  EDUCATION  IN  AMERICA  197 

the  Sisters  of  St.  Dominic  at  St.  Rose.  These  three 
communities  spread  rapidly  through  Kentucky, 
Missouri,  and  Arkansas.  As  the  country  became 
more  settled,  they  established  convent  schools  for 
girls  in  other  Western  States. 

In  New  York  up  to  1822  the  Catholic  schools  of 
the  parishes  of  St.  Peter's  and  St.  Patrick's  re 
ceived,  like  the  schools  of  other  denominations,  a 
part  of  the  public  school  funds.  After  that  the 
Public  School  Society  took  charge  of  the  distribu 
tion  of  the  funds  and  stopped  the  appropriation  to 
sectarian  schools.  In  1840  Bishop  Hughes  of  New 
York  made  a  hard  fight  for  a  share  in  the  public 
funds,  but  he  was  beaten.  He  then  declared  that 
"the  days  have  come  and  the  place  in  which  the 
school  is  more  necessary  than  the  church"  and  set 
out  to  establish  an  independent  school  system 
under  church  control.  In  this  he  was  so  successful 
that,  before  his  death,  nearly  every  church  in  New 
York  had  been  provided  with  a  parish  school. 

These  were  the  days  of  the  "no  Popery"  agi 
tation  when  "Native  Americans"  and  Irish  fought 
in  the  streets  of  New  York  and  Philadelphia  over 
the  relative  merits  of  the  Douay  and  King  James's 
versions  of  the  Bible,  although  many  of  the  bel 
ligerents  doubtless  could  not  have  told  the  two 


198    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

books  apart.  The  Catholics  objected  to  the  cus 
tom  of  holding  devotional  exercises  in  the  Protes 
tant  form  at  the  opening  of  school  sessions.  The 
Protestants,  on  the  other  hand,  were  alarmed  at 
the  rapid  influx  of  large  numbers  of  Irish  and  Ger 
man  Catholics  and  feared  the  overthrow  of  the 
free  public  school  system  which  was  their  country's 
pride.  The  outcome  of  the  conflict  was  a  clean-cut 
separation  of  public  and  sectarian  schools.  Bible- 
reading,  hymns,  and  prayers  have  been  almost 
altogether  eliminated  from  the  public  schools. 
This  exclusion,  however,  does  not  make  the  schools 
acceptable  to  the  Catholics  and  Lutherans  who 
believe  that  religious  training  cannot  safely  be  di 
vorced  from  secular  education.  Wherever  possible, 
therefore,  they  have  established  their  own  schools. 
The  First  Provincial  Council  of  Baltimore  de 
clared  in  1829 :  "We  deem  it  entirely  necessary  that 
schools  should  be  established,  in  which  the  young, 
while  they  be  taught  letters,  should  also  be  taught 
the  principles  of  faith  and  morals."  But  this  and 
subsequent  recommendations  had  no  very  marked 
effect,  and  Catholic  schools  were  not  common  until 
after  1884,  when  the  Third  Plenary  Council  of 
Baltimore  ordered  a  parochial  school  to  be  erected 
near  each  church  within  two  years  and  threatened 


CATHOLIC  EDUCATION  IN  AMERICA  199 

with  removal  any  priest  who  neglected  this  com 
mand.  The  Council  further  decreed  that  "all 
Catholic  parents  are  bound  to  send  their  children 
to  the  parochial  schools,  unless  either  at  home  or  in 
other  Catholic  schools  they  may  sufficiently  and 
evidently  provide  for  the  Christian  education  of 
their  children  or  unless  it  be  lawful  to  send  them  to 
other  schools  on  account  of  a  sufficient  cause  ap 
proved  by  the  bishop  and  with  opportune  cautions 
and  remedies." 

The  Pastoral  Letter  of  the  Third  Plenary  Coun 
cil  declared  that  "the  public  school  system  is 
controlled  absolutely  by  Protestants,  conducted 
on  Protestant  principles  and  made  an  instrument 
for  debauching  the  faith  of  Catholic  children 
who  enter  the  walls  of  state  institutions."  Many 
Catholics  of  that  period  went  so  far  as  to  deny  the 
right  of  the  State  to  any  share  in  education.  They 
asserted,  for  instance,  that  "education  is  none  of 
the  state's  business,"  and  referred  to  "this  infidel, 
dishonest,  oppressive  and  un-American  system  of 
state  education." '  They  declared  that  "education 
itself  is  the  business  of  the  spiritual  society  alone, 
not  of  secular  society.  The  instruction  of  children 
and  youth  is  included  in  the  Sacrament  of  Orders 

1  American  Catholic  Quarterly,  April,  1884,  p.  245. 


200    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

and  the  State  usurps  the  functions  of  the  spiritual 
society  when  it  turns  educator."1 

But  this  extreme  view  received  a  heavy  blow 
in  1891  from  the  Reverend  Thomas  Bouquillon, 
Professor  of  Moral  Theology  in  the  Catholic  Uni 
versity  at  Washington,  in  a  pamphlet  entitled 
Education:  To  Whom  Does  It  Belong?  In  this  he 
established  by  abundant  citations  from  the  church 
authorities  themselves  that  "education  belongs  to 
individuals  isolated  and  collected,  to  the  family, 
to  the  state,  to  the  church:  to  these  four  together, 
to  none  of  them  exclusively.  Such  is  the  theoreti 
cal  doctrine.  The  practical  application  of  it  de 
mands  the  combination,  more  or  less  harmonious, 
of  these  four  interested  parties  in  the  work  of  the 
schools." 

Though  Dr.  Bouquillon's  contention  that  the 
State  had  some  rights  in  education  raised  a  storm 
of  opposition  from  more  rigorous  Catholics,  his 
view  gradually  gained  ground.  In  consequence 
the  earlier  attitude  of  intolerance  and  hostility 
toward  the  public  school  has  become  much  amelio 
rated.  In  spite  of  the  rapid  growth  of  the  parish 
school  system,  about  half  of  the  Catholic  children 
now  attend  the  public  schools,  and  sometimes  more 

The  Tablet;  quoted  in  Putnam's  Magazine,  December,  1869. 


CATHOLIC  EDUCATION  IN  AMERICA  201 

than  half  of  the  teachers  in  the  public  schools  are 
Catholic  women.  In  one  of  our  great  cities  the 
percentage  of  Catholic  teachers  has  risen  as  high 
as  85  per  cent. x 

Two  notable  attempts  —  known  as  the  "Pough- 
keepsie  Plan"  and  the  "Faribault  Plan"  — have 
been  made  to  throw  part  of  the  burden  of  the  sup 
port  of  the  Catholic  schools  upon  the  State.  At 
Poughkeepsie,  New  York,  the  city  school  board  in 
1873  took  over  two  Catholic  schools  for  a  nominal 
rental  and  employed  the  same  nuns  as  teachers. 
The  arrangement  lasted  till  1899,  when  it  was 
decided  to  be  unconstitutional.  In  1891  a  similar 
plan,  devised  by  Archbishop  Ireland,  was  put  into 
effect  at  Faribault  and  Stillwater,  Minnesota.  The 
parish  school  buildings  were  leased  for  a  year  to  the 
state  authorities.  The  same  teachers,  belonging  to 
the  order  of  St.  Dominic,  were  retained  and  received 
$50  a  month  from  the  public  school  board  in  place 
of  their  former  small  compensation.  After  hear 
ing  mass  in  the  parish  church,  the  children  were 
marched  into  the  classrooms.  After  school  closed 
in  the  afternoon  they  were  instructed  in  the  cate 
chism  for  one  hour.  No  text-books  to  which  the 
Archbishop  objected  were  to  be  used. 

1  Proceedings,  Catholic  Educational  Association  (1917),  p.  234. 


202    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

But  the  Faribault  attempt  at  compromise  was 
attacked  from  both  the  Protestant  and  Catholic 
sides  as  virtual  surrender  to  the  opposition.  The 
German  Catholic  press  was  virulent  in  its  criticism 
of  Archbishop  Ireland, I  and  his  opponents  carried 
the  question  up  to  Rome.  The  decision,  Tolerari 
potest,  of  the  Pope  and  Propaganda,  delivered  on 
April  21,  1892,  declared  that,  "while  the  decrees  of 
the  Baltimore  Councils  on  parochial  schools  are 
maintained  in  full  vigor,  the  arrangement  entered 
into  by  the  Most  Reverend  John  Ireland  as  to  the 
schools  of  Faribault  and  Stillwater,  all  things  con 
sidered,  can  be  tolerated."  This  decision  gave 
little  satisfaction  to  either  party  and  did  not  en 
courage  the  continuation  of  such  efforts  to  combine 
the  parochial  and  public  school  systems. 

After  the  two  organizations  agreed  to  keep  apart 
they  got  on  better  together.  The  habit  of  the 
sisterhoods  is  now  commonly  seen  on  the  campus 
of  State  Universities  or  institutions  of  Protestant 
foundation,  and  the  convent  schools  contain  many 
girls  from  Protestant  or  Hebrew  families.  The  Cath 
olic  high  schools  voluntarily  submit  to  inspection 

1  For  instance  the  Buffalo  Christliche  Welt  of  October  9,  1891, 
said:  "If  the  Devil  and  his  grandmother  can  enjoy  themselves  at 
all  they  must  have  danced  a  real  Irish  jig  when  the  parochial 
school  at  Faribault  was  given  over  to  the  State." 


CATHOLIC  EDUCATION  IN  AMERICA  203 

from  the  State  University  authorities  in  order 
to  qualify  as  accredited  schools  which  have  the 
privilege  of  sending  their  graduates  to  the  State 
Universities  without  examination  at  entrance. 
About  half  of  the  graduates  of  Catholic  high 
schools  who  enter  college  go  to  non-Catholic  insti 
tutions.  About  two-thirds  of  the  Catholic  girls 
who  seek  secondary  education  are  in  non-Catholic 
institutions.1  The  official  Catholic  Directory  for 
1919  reports  5788  parish  schools  with  1,633,599 
children  attending.  There  are  215  Catholic  col 
leges  for  boys  and  674  academies  for  girls.  But  in 
considering  these  figures  it  is  necessary  to  note 
that  "many  of  these  so-called  colleges  have  never 
had  a  single  college  student"  and  only  84  have 
any  students  above  the  high  school  grade.2  The 
rivalry  between  the  different  dioceses  and  teaching 
orders  has  had  the  same  effect  as  the  rivalry  be 
tween  the  different  towns  and  Protestant  sects  in 
leading  to  an  excessive  multiplication  of  weak  and 
inadequate  colleges. 

The  efforts  of  Catholic  educators  are  now  be 
ing  directed  toward  raising  the  standard  of  their 


1  Burns,  Catholic  Education,  1917. 

2  Reverend  W.  J.  Bergin  in  Proceedings  of  the  Catholic  Educa 
tional  Association,  1917.  p.  62. 


204    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

institutions  to  make  them  true  to  their  name  and 
better  able  to  meet  the  demands  of  modern  life. 
In  this  movement  the  Catholic  University  of 
America  at  Washington  has  taken  a  leading  part. 
This  institution  was  established  in  1887  by  Pope 
Leo  XIII  in  the  Apostolic  Letter  Magni  nobis 
gaudii  and  includes  a  School  of  Science  with  en 
gineering  courses,  as  well  as  Schools  of  Sacred, 
Philosophical,  and  Social  Sciences.  Located  near 
it  and  affiliated  with  it  are  houses  of  the  Paulist 
Fathers,  Marists,  Franciscans,  Sulpicians,  Domin 
icans,  and  other  orders.  The  University  conducts 
a  summer  school  for  Catholic  women  teachers 
and  corrects  the  examination  papers  of  the  160 
Catholic  high  schools  accepting  its  standard 
curriculum. 

In  establishing  and  supporting  its  independent 
educational  system  from  the  primary  school  to  the 
graduate  university,  the  Catholic  Church  has  had 
the  advantage  of  being  able  to  command  the  serv 
ices  of  some  forty  thousand  men  and  women  of 
religious  orders  who  devote  themselves  to  teaching 
on  less  than  half  the  salary  of  public  school  teachers. 
Nine-tenths  of  the  teachers  in  the  Catholic  schools 
and  colleges  belong  to  religious  orders  or  institutes. 
The  Jesuits  have  the  most  colleges,  the  Benedictines 


CATHOLIC  EDUCATION  IN  AMERICA  205 

next,  and  the  Christian  Brothers  third.  The  last 
named,  the  Institute  of  Brothers  of  the  Chris 
tian  Schools,  is  a  society  of  teachers  not  taking 
Holy  Orders,  founded  at  Rheims  in  1680  by  St. 
Jean  Baptiste  de  La  Salle.  In  order  not  to  come 
into  competition  with  the  Jesuits  the  Christian 
Brothers  were  forbidden  to  teach  Latin.  This 
restricted  them  to  a  less  fashionable  and  less  profit 
able  field,  but  the  whirligig  of  time  has  tended  to 
reverse  the  advantage,  for  today  in  the  United 
States  classical  education  is  less  in  demand  than 
English  and  engineering  courses. 

The  segregation  of  the  sexes  above  the  elemen 
tary  grades  is  a  feature  of  Catholic  education 
that  distinguishes  it  from  the  prevailing  American 
practice.  The  Reverend  Francis  Cassilly,  S.  J., 
of  St.  Xavier  College,  Cincinnati,  says1:  "Co 
education  and  female  teaching  in  boys'  high  schools 
are  radically  wrong  from  a  pedagogical,  a  civil,  and 
a  religious  standpoint." 

An  important  field  of  the  Catholic  schools  in  the 
past  has  been  in  the  education  of  the  children  of 
immigrants,  and  for  this  reason  the  instruction 
has  often  been  given  in  foreign  tongues  and  by 

1  Bulletin  Catholic  Educational  Association,  February,  1912, 
p.  30. 


206    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

European  teachers.  But  the  Great  War,  by  slack 
ening  the  tide  of  immigration  and  accelerating  the 
process  of  Americanization,  has  tended  to  obliterate 
this  characteristic  of  Catholic  education 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE   RISE   OF   TECHNICAL   EDUCATION 

We  believe  that  in  the  schools  of  applied  science  and  technology 
as  they  are  carried  on  today  in  the  United  States,  involving  the 
thorough  and  most  scholarly  study  of  principles  directed  imme 
diately  upon  useful  arts,  and  rising,  in  their  higher  grades,  into 
original  investigation  and  research,  is  to  be  found  almost  the  per 
fection  of  education  for  young  men.  — Francis  A.  Walker. 

AGRICULTURE  and  fishing  were  at  first  the  principal 
industries  of  the  American  colonies,  and  the  mother 
country  discouraged  rather  than  favored  efforts 
to  establish  others.  American  enterprise  was  re 
stricted  by  the  navigation  and  trade  laws  enacted 
early  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II  and  supplemented 
by  later  measures,  and  it  was  also  limited  by  re 
strictions  on  the  right  to  manufacture  freely.  The 
iron  and  beaver-hat  industries,  if  not  destroyed  by 
British  legislation,  were  held  down  within  narrow 
limits.  To  restrictions  on  colonial  trade  and  in 
dustry  were  added  irritating  taxation  and  prohibi 
tions  on  paper  money.  It  was  such  arbitrary  in 
terference  with  their  economic  independence  that 

207 


208    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

led  the  colonists  to  turn  to  the  idea  of  political 
independence. 

Besides  the  artificial  and  legislative  restrictions 
imposed  upon  manufactures  and  commerce  by  the 
mother  country,  the  natural  impediments  in  the 
way  of  establishing  industries  in  a  new  land  were 
often  insurmountable.  Resources  were  undevel 
oped,  and  the  population  was  scanty  and  scattered. 
Skilled  mechanics  were  hard  to  get,  even  when 
there  was  capital  to  employ  them.  Colonists  who 
possessed  some  degree  of  knowledge  of  industrial 
processes  had  little  chance  to  exercise  their  tech 
nical  ability  and  so  to  transmit  it  to  the  next 
generation. 

It  was  because  the  ministers  of  New  England 
were  appalled  by  the  thought  that  their  flocks 
would  be  left  to  an  unlettered  ministry  that  they 
established  colleges  for  the  education  of  their  suc 
cessors.  It  was  also  perceived  that  the  younger 
generation  was  likely  to  grow  up  idle  and  ignorant 
for  lack  of  training  in  the  trades.  The  first  public 
school  law,  the  Massachusetts  Ordinance  of  1642, 
deals  with  the  training  of  children  "in  learning  and 
labor."  It  insists  that  they  be  taught  "  to  read  and 
understand  the  principles  of  religion  and  the  capi 
tal  laws  of  this  country,"  and  it  also  stipulates  that 


THE  RISE  OF  TECHNICAL  EDUCATION  209 

they  be  provided  with  hemp  and  flax  and  "the 
tools  and  implements  for  working  out  the  same." 
The  early  educational  laws  of  the  other  colonies 
also  lay  stress  upon  the  importance  of  training  in 
the  crafts,  but  all  relied,  as  was  the  custom  in  Eng 
land,  upon  the  apprentice  system  to  carry  it  out. 
Where  the  educational  needs  of  the  apprentice 
conflicted  with  the  financial  interests  of  the  master, 
however,  the  latter  were  likely  to  receive  first  con 
sideration.  For  the  master  the  educational  system 
provided  no  substitute.  The  world  was  slow  to 
bridge  the  gap  between  pure  science  and  applied 
science,  and  there  were  few  who  realized  in  the 
eighteenth  century  that  the  university  professor 
might  teach  the  crafts  without  lowering  his  dignity. 
Jefferson  was  one  of  the  few.  His  ambitious  design 
for  a  State  University  included  "a  school  of  tech 
nical  philosophy"  with  a  very  comprehensive  kind 
of  university  extension.  Jefferson  believed  that: 

To  such  a  school  will  come  the  mariner,  carpenter, 
shipwright,  pump  maker,  clock  maker,  mechanist,  op 
tician,  metallurgist,  founder,  cutler,  druggist,  brewer, 
vinter,  distiller,  dyer,  painter,  bleacher,  soap  maker, 
tanner,  powder  maker,  salt  maker,  glass  maker  to 
learn  as  much  as  shall  be  necessary  to  pursue  their  art 
understandingly  of  the  sciences  of  geometry,  mechan 
ics,  statics,  hydrostatics,  hydraulics,  hydrodynamics, 


210    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

navigation,  astronomy,  geography,  optics,  pneumatics, 
acoustics,  physics,  chemistry,  natural  history,  botany, 
mineralogy,  and  pharmacy. 

But  Jefferson  did  not  live  to  see  such  a  school  es 
tablished,  and  indeed  it  would  be  hard  to  find  one 
even  today  which  the  mariner,  the  carpenter,  and 
their  kind  could  attend  with  the  assurance  of 
finding  the  needed  instruction. 

For  professor  of  agriculture  in  the  university  of 
which  he  was  the  founder  or,  as  he  preferred  to  be 
called,  the  "father,"  Jefferson  picked  out  Arthur 
Young.  It  was  a  pity  that  he  could  not  get  this 
excellent  man  to  serve,  for  the  observant  author  of 
Travels  in  France  and  Annals  of  Agriculture  might 
have  done  a  great  deal  for  the  American  farmer. 
The  sage  of  Monticello  also  tried  to  start  the  sys 
tematic  acclimatization  of  useful  plants,  and  during 
the  last  twenty-three  years  of  his  life  he  regularly 
received  from  his  friend  Thonin,  superintendent 
of  the  Jardin  des  Plantes  in  Paris,  a  box  of  exotic 
seeds  which  he  distributed  to  various  public  and 
private  gardens. 

Both  Jefferson  and  Franklin  during  their  resi 
dence  in  France  became  imbued  with  the  doctrines 
of  the  physiocratic  school,  which  held  that  agricul 
ture  was  the  only  real  productive  industry  and  that 


THE  RISE  OF  TECHNICAL  EDUCATION  211 

manufacture  and  commerce  were  of  secondary 
importance  to  a  nation.  Franklin  believed  that 
sciences  could  be  best  learned  by  practicing  them. 
Accordingly,  in  his  project  for  the  "Publick 
Academy"  in  Philadelphia,  he  suggested  the 
importance  of  field-work  in  agriculture: 

While  they  are  reading  natural  history,  might  not  a 
little  gardening,  planting,  grafting  and  inoculating 
be  taught  and  practiced;  and  now  and  then  excur 
sions  made  to  the  neighboring  plantations  of  the 
best  farmers,  their  methods  observed  and  reasoned 
upon  for  the  information  of  youth;  the  improvement 
of  agriculture  being  useful  to  all,  and  skill  in  it  no 
disparagement  to  any? 

Notwithstanding  the  diffident  way  in  which  Frank 
lin  introduces  this  revolutionary  suggestion,  we 
may  infer  that  he  was  quite  positive  about  its 
value  and  very  determined  to  put  it  through,  for 
in  his  Autobiography  he  has  told  us  why  he  found 
it  politic  to  modify  the  dogmatic  manner  of  his 
youth  and  to  state  a  proposal  tentatively  in  order 
to  secure  its  acceptance. 

Franklin  in  his  Academy  at  Philadelphia  and 
Jefferson  in  the  University  of  Virginia  tried  to 
attract  public  attention  to  industrial  and  especially 
agricultural  education*  but  both  failed.  Other  men 
of  foresight  renewed  the  effort.  In  1819  Simeon 


212    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

DeWitt,  who  was  for  fifty  years  Surveyor  General 
of  New  York  State,  published  a  pamphlet  entitled 
Considerations  on  the  Necessity  of  Establishing  an 
Agricultural  College  and  having  more  of  the  Children 
of  Wealthy  Citizens  educated  for  the  Profession  of 
Farming,  in  which  he  puts  the  situation  clearly: 

There  are  now  thousands  of  wealthy  citizens  in  this 
state  who  do  not  know  what  to  do  with  their  sons. 
In  the  first  place,  without  any  determinate  object  in 
view,  they  give  them  a  liberal  education,  or  rather, 
they  send  them  for  four  years  to  a  college  to  obtain 
the  reputation  of  having  a  graduate's  diploma,  and  so 
much  instruction  in  the  dead  languages  and  the  ordi 
nary  sciences  as  they  are  compelled  or  disposed  to  at 
tend  to;  after  that  there  are  only  three  professions 
from  which  ordinarily  they  are  to  choose  their  means 
of  living  and  rising  into  consequence  —  law,  physic, 
and  divinity;  but  so  great  are  the  numbers  of  young 
gentlemen  destined  for  these  professions,  that  their 
prospects  are  truly  dismal;  but  what  other  provision 
can  their  fathers  make  for  them?  Turn  them  to  some 
mechanic  employment?  that  is  considered  too  degrad 
ing;  To  manufacturing?  it  has  been  tried  and  proved 
ruinous;  To  mercantile  business?  that  too  is  over 
stocked;  To  the  army  and  navy?  there  is  little  room 
there,  and  many  reasons  against  it.  To  farming? 
nothing,  it  is  said,  cart  be  made  by  it. 

The  author  then  proposes  a  good  sensible  plan  for 
an  agricultural  college,  with  farm  work  for  the 


THE  RISE  OF  TECHNICAL  EDUCATION  213 

students  and  —  what  some  such  institutions  have 
tried  to  get  along  without  —  a  "Professor  of  Prac 
tical  Agriculture,"  besides  the  professor  of  chem 
istry,  botany,  and  other  sciences.  DeWitt  was 
more  than  fifty  years  ahead  of  his  time,  for  it  was 
not  until  after  the  Civil  War  that  the  necessity  for 
educating  for  "the  profession  of  farming"  was 
generally  recognized.  But  his  alma  mater,  Queens 
College,  then  a  classical  and  sectarian  institution 
under  the  control  of  the  Dutch  Reformed  Church, 
has  now  been  transformed  into  Rutgers  College, 
the  agricultural  college  of  New  Jersey,  and  much 
the  sort  of  an  institution  he  desired. 

One  of  the  first  acts  of  the  new  State  of  Maine 
was  to  incorporate  in  1822  the  Gardiner  Lyceum 
"to  give  mechanics  and  farmers  such  an  education 
as  will  enable  them  to  become  skilled  in  their  pro 
fessions."1  Although  the  Gardiner  Lyceum  lived 
only  ten  years,  it  did  not  live  in  vain.  Its  second 
principal,  John  H.  Lathrop,  served  later  as  presi 
dent  of  three  State  Universities  in  the  West  — 
Missouri,  Indiana,  and  Wisconsin.  Its  first  "per 
manent  instructor  in  agriculture,"  Ezekiel  Holmes, 
only  a  week  before  his  death  in  1865,  managed  to 
persuade  the  Maine  Legislature  to  pass  an  act 

1  Journal  of  I  he  Franklin  Institute.  1895. 


AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

establishing  the  College  of  Agriculture  and  Me 
chanic  Arts,  which  became  the  University  of  Maine, 
the  first  State  University  in  New  England. 

One  is  reminded  of  the  parable  of  the  sower. 
How  many  seeds  fall  by  the  wayside  and  upon  the 
rocky  places !  How  many  times  the  ground  has  to 
be  seeded  before  a  crop  comes  up !  It  seems  that 
only  one  idea  bears  fruit  out  of  a  million  of  the 
same  sort.  Among  the  few  that  did  not  perish 
but  visibly  took  root  at  once  was  the  report  of 
President  Wayland  to  the  Corporation  of  Brown 
University  in  1850.  After  showing  that  the  twelve 
colleges  of  New  England  had  fewer  students  than 
ten  years  before,  although  endowments  had  in 
creased  and  fees  had  been  reduced,  the  report 
proceeded  to  give  the  reason  for  this  state  of  affairs : 

Our  colleges  are  not  filled  because  we  do  not  furnish 
the  education  desired  by  the  people.  .  .  .  We  have 
produced  an  article  for  which  the  demand  is  diminish 
ing.  We  sell  it  at  less  than  cost  and  the  deficiency  is 
made  up  by  charity.  We  give  it  away  and  still  the 
demand  diminishes.  We  have  in  this  country  one 
hundred  and  twenty  colleges,  forty-two  theological 
seminaries,  and  forty-seven  law  schools,  and  we  have 
not  a  single  institution  designed  to  furnish  the  agri 
culturist,  the  manufacturer,  the  mechanic,  or  the 
merchant  with  the  education  that  will  prepare  him  for 
the  profession  to  which  his  life  will  be  devoted. 


THE  RISE  OF  TECHNICAL  EDUCATION 

Trustees  of  colleges  were  not  accustomed  to  being 
talked  to  in  that  tone.  Great  was  the  indignation 
aroused  by  Wayland's  arraignment.  But  the  fault 
was  now  pointed  out  so  clearly  that  it  could  not  be 
ignored.  It  was  one  of  omission  rather  than  of 
commission.  The  university  in  medieval  times  was 
started  with  the  practical  and  proper  purpose  of 
training  for  the  three  learned  professions  —  theol 
ogy,  law,  and  medicine.  It  had  continued  to  per 
form  this  service  with  increasing  efficiency  but  had 
not  observed  that  with  the  advance  of  science  there 
had  arisen  a  new  learned  profession  called,  for  lack 
of  a  better  name,  engineering.  This  required  as 
long  and  systematic  training  as  the  older  profes 
sions  and  was  not  devoid  of  a  cultural  value  of  its 
own,  but  no  adequate  facilities  had  as  yet  been 
provided  for  it.  So  long  as  nine-tenths  of  the 
graduates  became  preachers,  lawyers,  and  doctors, 
the  college  had  no  reason  to  pay  much  attention 
to  the  rest.  But  when  this  proportion  was  re 
versed,  evidently  the  institution  was  being  run  in 
the  interests  of  the  minority. 

The  first  branch  of  this  new  profession  to  demand 
attention  was  naturally  land  surveying,  and  the 
surveyors  were  usually  among  the  foremost  in  urg 
ing  the  extension  of  education  to  include  applied 


216    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

science,  especially  agriculture.  To  Washington 
and  DeWitt,  already  mentioned,  another  surveyor 
must  now  be  added  —  Stephen  Van  Rensselaer,  a 
descendant  of  the  Dutch  patroon  of  that  name  who 
was  granted  a  wide  domain  in  the  Hudson  Valley. 
It  was  Stephen  Van  Rensselaer  who  first  proposed 
the  Erie  Canal  and,  as  State  Commissioner,  made 
the  first  survey  for  it  in  181 1.  He  offered  to  donate 
land  for  a  college  of  agriculture  and  mechanic  arts 
on  the  Fellenberg  plan  if  the  State  would  establish 
such  an  institution. x  When  the  New  York  Legisla 
ture  refused,  he  took  it  upon  himself  to  found  at 
Troy  a  school  "for  the  purpose  of  instructing  per 
sons  who  may  choose  to  apply  themselves  in  the 
application  of  science  to  the  common  purposes  of 
life."  The  Rensselaer  Polytechnic  Institute,  which 
was  thus  opened  in  1825,  developed  only  twenty- 
five  years  later  into  a  full  four-year  school  of  en 
gineering.  The  principal  object  of  the  founder  was 
rather  a  training  school  for  teachers  for  what  today 
would  be  called  the  "short  course"  or  "extension 
work  "  in  agricultural  and  domestic  science.  Rens- 
selaer's  idea  of  how  the  sciences  should  be  taught 


1  A  brief  but  excellent  survey  of  the  early  efforts  at  the  educa 
tion  of  engineers  will  be  found  in  Columbia  University  Quarterly, 
December,  1916. 


THE  RISE  OF  TECHNICAL  EDUCATION  217 

is  interesting:  "These  are  not  to  be  taught  by  see 
ing  experiments  and  hearing  lectures  according  to 
the  usual  methods.  But  they  are  to  lecture  and 
experiment  by  turns,  under  the  immediate  direc 
tion  of  the  professor  or  competent  assistant.  Thus, 
by  a  term  of  labor,  like  an  apprentice  to  a  trade, 
they  are  to  become  operative  chemists."  The 
"Rensselaer  plan"  of  student  demonstrations 
spread  rapidly  to  other  schools  and  may  be  re 
garded  as  the  precursor  of  the  modern  laboratory 
methods  and  of  the  close  connection  between  school 
and  shop  which  has  been  established  in  recent 
times  at  Cincinnati,  Gary,  and  elsewhere. 

But  the  idea  has  a  longer  genealogy  than  that, 
and  we  must  here  consider  influences  emanating 
from  Switzerland  and  Germany  which  had  much 
to  do  with  the  development  of  industrial  education 
in  the  United  States.  Johann  Heinrich  Pestalozzi, 
inspired  by  Rousseau's  theory  of  natural  educa 
tion,  conceived  a  method  of  teaching  by  means  of 
"object  lessons"  in  place  of  the  traditional  verbal 
instruction  and  tried  to  combine  manual  with 
mental  labor.  Pestalozzi  in  turn  inspired  three 
other  great  educators  who  in  the  early  years  of 
the  nineteenth  century  worked  out  different  sides 
of  his  doctrine.  Froebel  devoted  himself  to  the 


218     AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

training  of  children  and  developed  the  kindergarten, 
which  was  introduced  into  the  United  States  about 
1870.  Herbart  developed  the  psychological  prin 
ciples  of  the  new  education  in  Germany  which, 
when  brought  to  America  in  the  nineties,  effected 
a  thorough  reformation  of  methods  of  instruction. 
The  third  of  the  disciples  of  Pestalozzi  was  a  rich 
Swiss  aristocrat,  Philipp  Emanuel  von  Fellenberg, 
who  seized  upon  the  idea  of  a  democratic  and  prac 
tical  system  of  education  in  which  the  children  of 
rich  and  poor  should  study  and  work  together  and 
develop  all  their  faculties  through  useful  labor. 
With  this  object  he  started  a  "farm-school"  at 
Hofwyl,  near  Bern,  in  1806,  and  before  many  years 
similar  industrial  institutions  had  sprung  up  in 
Switzerland  and  Germany.  The  movement  was 
taken  up  enthusiastically  and  spread  in  the  United 
States  by  the  Society  for  Promoting  Manual  Labor 
in  Literary  Institutions.  Theological  seminaries, 
following  the  lead  of  Andover  in  1826,  introduced 
manual  labor  "for  invigorating  and  preserving 
health,  without  any  reference  to  pecuniary  profit." 
Robert  Dale  Owen,  trained  at  Hofwyl,  made  it  a 
feature  of  his  communistic  colony  at  New  Har 
mony,  Indiana.  But  as  manual  labor  was  ex 
tensively  adopted  in  charitable  and  reformatory 


THE  RISE  OF  TECHNICAL  EDUCATION  219 

institutions,  this  addition  to  the  curriculum  natu 
rally  did  not  tend  to  remove  the  prejudice  pre 
vailing  in  academic  circles  against  the  use  of 
the  hands. 

As  a  result  of  these  various  attempts  to  found 
Fellenberg  schools  in  America,  it  was  soon  realized 
that  the  expectation  of  making  the  institutions 
self-supporting  by  student  labor  was  fallacious. 
The  kind  and  amount  of  work  that  the  unskilled 
youth  could  do  in  time  spared  from  his  studies 
proved  too  insufficient  to  be  profitable.  The  school 
either  failed  altogether  or,  if  it  prospered,  the  irk 
some  manual  labor  was  gradually  eliminated  until 
only  an  academy  or  college  of  the  traditional  liter 
ary  type  remained.  In  cases  where  the  vocational 
aspect  gained  the  predominance,  an  engineering  or 
trade  school  resulted.  Manual  training  with  a 
purely  educational  aim  has  been  retained  in  city 
schools  and  is  a  common  feature  of  the  upper 
grades.  The  Swedish  sloyd  and  the  Russian  sys 
tem  have  had  their  day  and  left  their  traces.  The 
Tuskegee  Institute  for  negroes,  founded  in  Ala 
bama  in  1881  by  Booker  T.  Washington,  perhaps 
most  nearly  approaches  the  type  toward  which  the 
Fellenberg  movement  pointed. 

Wayland's  arraignment  of  higher  education  was 


220    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

not  much  overdrawn.  Up  to  the  middle  of  the 
nineteenth  century  the  educational  needs  of  the 
farmer,  the  mechanic,  and  the  engineer  had  been 
very  poorly  provided  for.  But  the  experiments 
which  had  failed  were  not  altogether  fruitless,  and 
the  efforts  of  the  agricultural  and  industrial  classes 
were  soon  to  be  crowned  with  success  through  the 
munificence  of  the  Federal  Government.  To  the 
new  era  inaugurated  by  the  Morrill  Act  a  chapter 
must  be  devoted. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  MORRILL  ACT   AND   WHAT   CAME   OF  IT 

The  endowment,  support  and  maintenance  of  at  least  one 
college  where  the  leading  object  shall  be,  without  excluding  other 
scientific  and  classical  studies,  and  including  military  tactics,  to 
teach  such  branches  of  learning  as  are  related  to  agriculture  and 
the  mechanic  arts,  in  such  manner  as  the  legislatures  of  the  States 
may  respectively  prescribe,  in  order  to  promote  the  liberal  and 
practical  education  of  the  industrial  classes  in  the  several  pursuits 
and  professions  in  life.  —  The  Morrill  Act  of  1862. 

THESE  seventy-five  words  are  among  the  most 
important  in  the  history  of  American  education, 
for  in  every  State  they  established  institutions  of  a 
new  type  upon  which  are  now  expended  more  than 
$36,000,000  of  public  funds  every  year.  No  other 
country  has  provided  so  extensive  a  system  of  in 
dustrial  education  or  has  endowed  it  so  liberally. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  in  general  the  party 
favoring  the  protection  of  American  industries  has 
done  most  to  promote  the  research  and  education 
upon  which  those  industries  depend.  The  Tariff 

Act  of  1861  was  drawn  up  by  the  same  hand  that 

221 


222    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

drafted  the  Morrill  Land  Grant  Act  of  1862  for  the 
benefit  of  industrial  education;  and  the  Morrill 
Bill,  which  had  been  vetoed  by  the  Democratic 
President  Buchanan,  was  signed  three  years  later 
by  Abraham  Lincoln. 

In  an  address  before  the  Wisconsin  State  Agri 
cultural  Society  at  Milwaukee  in  1859,  Lincoln 
thus  expressed  his  idea  of  industrial  education : 

The  old  general  rule  was  that  educated  people  did  not, 
perform  manual  labor.  They  managed  to  eat  their 
bread,  leaving  the  toil  of  producing  it  to  the  unedu 
cated.  .  .  .  But  free  labor  says  "No."  Free  labor 
argues  that  as  the  Author  of  man  makes  every  indi 
vidual  with  one  head  and  one  pair  of  hands,  it  was  prob 
ably  intended  that  heads  and  hands  should  cooperate 
as  friends,  and  that  that  particular  head  should  direct 
and  control  that  pair  of  hands.  As  each  man  has  one 
mouth  to  be  fed  and  one  pair  of  hands  to  furnish  food, 
it  was  probably  intended  that  that  particular  pair  of 
hands  should  feed  that  particular  mouth,  that  each 
head  is  the  natural  guardian,  director,  and  protector 
of  the  hands  and  mouth  inseparably  connected  with 
it:  and  that  being  so,  every  head  should  be  cultivated 
and  improved  by  whatever  will  add  to  its  capacity  for 
performing  its  charge.  In  one  word,  free  labor  insists 
on  universal  education. 

Agricultural  societies  such  as  Lincoln  was  address 
ing  had  existed  for  a  hundred  years  and  had  long 


THE  MORRILL  ACT  223 

been  urging  upon  the  deaf  ears  of  the  colleges  the 
necessity  for  agricultural  education.  Washington, 
Jefferson,  and  Franklin  were  members  of  the  Phila 
delphia  Society  for  Promoting  Agriculture.  As 
early  as  1799  this  society,  whose  seal  bore  the 
motto  "Venerate  the  Plough,"  considered  plans 
for  teaching  the  science  and  art  of  agriculture  in 
the  colleges  and  common  schools. 

Half  a  century  later  a  New  York  society,  the 
Mechanics  Mutual  Protection,  started  a  movement 
for  a  "People's  College  for  the  purpose  of  promot 
ing  literature,  science,  arts,  and  agriculture"  and, 
after  ten  years  of  agitation  in  which  the  powerful 
aid  of  Horace  Greeley's  Tribune  was  enlisted,  ob 
tained  a  charter  from  the  Legislature  in  1853.  The 
People's  College  proposed  to  give  an  education 
more  liberal  than  those  which  hitherto  had  mo 
nopolized  the  "liberal  arts."  The  old-fashioned 
colleges  as  a  rule  paid  scant  attention  to  science 
and  ignored  agriculture;  but  the  trustees  of  the 
People's  College  were  more  generously  directed  to 
"make  ample  provision  for  instruction  in  the  clas 
sics."  So,  too,  the  Morrill  Act  itself  expressly  dis 
claims  antagonism  to  the  older  education  by  the 
words,  "without  excluding  classical  studies." 

The  People's  College,  however,  could  not  raise 


224    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

enough  money  to  open  its  doors,  and  until  it  did  so 
the  State  refused  help.  President  Brown  of  the 
People's  College  accordingly  went  to  Washington 
to  lobby  for  the  Morrill  bill.  The  national  funds 
which  were  finally  obtained  through  this  measure 
went  to  Cornell  University,  which  has  in  most 
respects  more  than  fulfilled  the  expectations  of  the 
People's  College  and  which  was  situated  appro 
priately  at  Ithaca,  the  home  of  Simeon  DeWitt. 
Another  force  working  toward  the  Morrill  Act 
came  from  Illinois.  Jonathan  B.  Turner,  a  pro 
fessor  of  Illinois  College,  Jacksonville,  presented 
"A  Plan  for  an  Industrial  University,"  which  was 
printed  in  the  United  States  Patent  Office  Report 
of  1852;  and  next  year  the  General  Assembly  of 
Illinois  memorialized  Congress  to  grant  land  to 
each  State  for  the  establishment  of  at  least  one 
college  for  agriculture  and  mechanic  arts.  The  bill 
which  was  introduced  by  Morrill  in  1857  and 
passed  by  Congress  but  vetoed  by  President 
Buchanan  followed  closely  the  Illinois  memorial. 
After  the  bill  had  been  vetoed  by  the  President, 
Turner  continued  to  work  for  it  and,  in  the  next 
presidential  contest,  obtained  the  promises  of  both 
Lincoln  and  his  rival  Douglas  to  sign  the  bill  if  it 
were  to  come  before  them.  Lincoln  was  the  one 


THE  MORRILL  ACT  225 

to  whom  the  opportunity  came  on  July  2,  1862,  one 
of  the  darkest  days  of  the  Civil  War. 

Justin  S.  Morrill,  Vermont  farmer  and  Congress 
man,  was  transferred  to  the  Senate  in  1867  and 
remained  in  office  long  enough  to  see  the  fruition 
of  his  work.  The  Morrill  Act  of  1862  gave  to  each 
State  for  educational  purposes  30,000  acres  of  land 
for  each  Senator  and  Representative  in  Congress. 
The  second  Morrill  Act,  signed  by  President  Harri 
son  in  1890,  gave  to  each  State  $25,000  a  year  from 
land  sales  though,  to  prevent  diversion  of  the 
funds,  it  limited  the  expenditure  to  instruction  in 
agriculture,  the  mechanic  arts,  the  related  sciences, 
and  the  English  language.  The  Hatch  Act  of  1887 
gave  $15,000  a  year  to  each  State  for  an  agricul 
tural  experiment  station,  and  the  Adams  Act  of 
1906  doubled  this  appropriation.  The  Smith- 
Lever  Act  of  1914  appropriated  funds  amounting 
to  $4,580,000  a  year  to  the  several  States  on  the 
condition  of  their  providing  equal  amounts  "to 
aid  in  diffusing  among  the  people  of  the  United 
States  useful  and  practical  information  relating  to 
agriculture  and  home  economics." 

Under  the  first  Morrill  Act  about  13,000,000 
acres  of  the  public  domain,  an  area  nearly  twice  as 
large  as  Belgium,  have  been  distributed  to  the 


226    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

States.  The  total  value  of  the  nation's  gifts  to  this 
form  of  education  up  to  the  present  amounts  to 
more  than  a  quarter  of  a  billion  dollars.  The  land- 
grant  colleges  and  experiment  stations  now  num 
ber  sixty-nine,  for  there  is  one  or  more  in  every 
State  and  also  in  the  Philippines,  Hawaii,  and 
Porto  Rico,  and  they  give  instruction  to  more  than 
100,000  students.  Besides  these  colleges  there  are 
1426  agricultural  high  schools. 

The  Morrill  Act  wisely  left  each  State  to  decide 
how  it  should  employ  the  land  scrip  bestowed  upon 
it.  In  consequence  the  most  diverse  institutions 
sprang  up.  In  twenty-six  States  new  colleges  of 
agriculture  and  mechanics  were  established.  In 
nearly  half  of  the  States,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
funds  were  turned  over  to  an  existing  institution, 
usually  the  State  University  where  there  was  one. 
In  Michigan  the  agricultural  college  provided  by 
the  State  Constitution  of  1850  had  been  opened  at 
Lansing  in  1857.  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania  had 
each  started  one  in  1859.  These  were  the  only 
State  agricultural  colleges  established  before  the 
Morrill  Act.  The  Massachusetts  Institute  of 
Technology  at  Boston,  incorporated  in  1861,  re 
ceived  two-thirds  of  the  Morrill  fund  of  Massa 
chusetts,  while  the  other  third  went  to  the  Agri- 


THE  MORRILL  ACT  227 

cultural  College  opened  at  Amherst.  Massachu 
setts  is  the  only  State  where  "agriculture  and  the 
mechanic  arts"  are  separated. 

Since  the  Morrill  Act  was  passed  in  the  midst  of 
the  Civil  War  it  was  natural  that  it  should  contain 
the  phrase  "including  military  tactics."  These 
three  words  have  had  momentous  consequence. 
The  old-time  "training  days"  had  long  fallen  into 
desuetude  and,  except  for  the  private  military 
academies  and  West  Point,  there  was  practically 
no  military  training  given  to  the  young  men  of 
America  up  to  the  time  of  the  Civil  War.  But 
at  the  outbreak  of  the  war  with  Spain  in  1898 
the  graduates  of  the  land-grant  colleges  volun 
teered  promptly,  and  over  a  thousand  of  them  ob 
tained  commissions.  By  the  time  the  United  States 
next  engaged  in  war  there  were  over  25,000  such 
trained  men. 

Reference  to  the  clause  from  the  Morrill  Act 
quoted  at  the  head  of  this  chapter  will  show  that 
"agriculture  and  the  mechanic  arts"  are  stated  to 
be  joint  objects  of  educational  endeavor.  This 
connection  is  historically  correct,  for  the  two  were 
usually  combined  in  movements  to  establish  indus 
trial  schools.  But  the  success  of  the  movement  was 
due  to  the  farmers  rather  than  to  the  mechanics, 


228    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

for  the  farmers,  more  numerous  and  in  the  ear* 
Her  years  of  the  republic  better  organized,  were 
able  to  exert  greater  political  influence.  Such 
agrarian  movements  as  the  Grange  of  1867  and  the 
People's  Party  of  1892,  which  were  deeply  con 
cerned  with  education,  aroused  little  sympathy 
among  the  laboring  classes  of  the  cities;  on  the 
other  hand  the  modern  labor  and  socialistic  move 
ment,  now  well  organized  and  powerful,  has  so  far 
done  little  for  industrial  education.  Some  labor 
men,  in  fact,  have  shown  a  disposition  to  look  with 
suspicion  upon  trade  schools,  especially  when 
founded  by  their  employers,  as  a  capitalistic 
scheme  to  make  skilled  labor  cheap  and  plentiful. 
The  modern  trade-unionist  would  at  any  rate  be 
strongly  opposed  to  the  idea  of  the  older  mechanic 
societies  that  students  should  be  employed  at 
productive  labor. 

The  institutions  that  received  the  Morrill  funds 
were  at  first  quite  uncertain  how  to  spend  them. 
It  was  a  long  time  before  the  problem  of  education 
in  "agriculture  and  the  mechanic  arts"  was  solved 
—  if,  indeed,  it  may  be  said  to  be  solved  yet.  The 
land  scrip,  which  was  sometimes  sold  at  less  than 
its  par  value  of  $1.25  an  acre  in  order  to  realize  on 
it  at  once,  brought  the  various  States  sums  ranging 


THE  MORRILL  ACT  229 

from  $50,000  to  $750,000.  This  money  was  often 
wasted  in  unprofitable  work  or  was  spent  on  educa 
tion  other  than  the  kind  intended.  To  a  small  de 
nominational  classical  college  it  came  as  a  welcome 
windfall,  yet  the  academic  faculty  were  apt  to  fear 
the  Federal  Government  as  it  came  bearing  gifts, 
and  the  students  were  disposed  to  show  open  con 
tempt  for  the  "base  mechanicals"  and  the  "cow 
colleges."  The  institution  sometimes  considered 
that  it  had  satisfied  the  requirements  of  the  law 
when  it  had  hired  a  professor  of  agriculture,  bought 
or  borrowed  a  demonstration  farm,  and  fitted  up 
a  shop.  The  rest  of  the  money  could  then  be  used 
where  it  was  most  needed  —  to  pay  the  salaries  of 
the  academic  professors,  most  of  whom  could  be 
made  to  figure  in  some  capacity  on  the  faculty  list 
of  the  so-called  "agricultural  course."  That  bona 
fide  agricultural  students  were  sometimes  few  or 
none  was  not  surprising  and,  in  the  minds  of  some 
of  the  colleagues  of  the  professor  of  agriculture,  not 
greatly  to  be  regretted.  Where  the  agricultural 
and  mechanical  college  was  distinct  from  the  State 
University  and  even  situated  in  another  place, 
many  of  its  students  showed  a  preference  for  the 
ordinary  literary  and  scientific  courses  rather  than 
for  the  vocational;  and,  since  the  State  University 


230    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

was  likely  also  to  offer  courses  in  engineering,  the 
two  institutions  tended  to  overlap  and  become 
rivals.  Although  the  land-grant  colleges  were 
founded  primarily  in  the  interests  of  agriculture, 
yet  in  their  early  days  the  mechanical  or  engineer 
ing  courses  attracted  more  students  because  the 
instruction  they  provided  was  better  organized 
and  led  to  more  profitable  positions.  The  com 
plaint  in  consequence  was  made  that  the  agricul 
tural  colleges  were  educating  not  for  the  farm  but 
from  the  farm.  They  certainly  did  not  serve  to 
elevate  the  status  of  agriculture  so  long  as  they 
took  the  brightest  boys  from  the  farm  and  trained 
them  for  city  occupations. 

But  these  early  defects  of  agricultural  education 
have  gradually  been  removed.  The  Department 
of  Agriculture  at  Washington  began  to  take  a 
fatherly  interest  in  the  colleges  and  experiment 
stations  and,  by  good  counsel  and  an  occasional 
threat  of  cutting  off  the  appropriation,  directed  the 
funds  into  their  proper  channels.  As  the  colleges 
developed  their  own  methods  of  instruction,  they 
gained  confidence  in  their  calling  and  won  the 
respect  of  educators  in  other  fields.  The  gap  be 
tween  the  chemist  and  the  botanist  who  were  igno 
rant  of  farming  and  the  practical  farmer  who  was 


THE  MORRILL  ACT  231 

contemptuous  of  "book-learning"  was  bridged  by 
a  new  order  of  men  with  a  grasp  of  both  theory  and 
practice.  When  the  experiment  stations  demon 
strated  —  as  for  instance  by  the  milk  testing  and 
bacteriology  of  the  dairy,  by  the  breeding  of  new 
varieties  of  crops  and  animals,  by  the  destruction 
of  insect  pests,  and  by  the  elimination  of  tubercu 
losis  —  that  the  endowment  of  scientific  research 
paid  the  community  in  concrete  coin,  they  had  no 
further  trouble  about  getting  funds.  Through  agri 
cultural  institutions,  university  extension  lectures, 
short  winter  courses,  demonstration  trains,  lending 
libraries,  correspondence  courses,  and  franked  bul 
letins,  the  land-grant  colleges  now  reach  two  or 
three  million  people  a  year.  They  have  come  to 
realize  that  they  have  a  wider  function  than  train 
ing  a  few  expert  managers  of  big  farms;  they  have 
to  educate  a  community  for  country  life. 

The  influence  exerted  by  the  Morrill  Act  is  well 
set  forth  in  the  words  of  Liberty  Hyde  Bailey  of 
Cornell,  one  of  the  first  to  perceive  its  spiritual 
significance  and  one  of  the  largest  contributors  to 
its  realization: 

The  Land-Grant  Act  is  probably  the  most  important 
single  specific  enactment  ever  made  in  the  interest 
of  education.  It  recognizes  the  principle  that  every 


232    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

citizen  is  entitled  to  receive  educational  aid  from  the 
government  and  that  the  common  affairs  of  life  are 
proper  subjects  with  which  to  educate  or  train  men. 
Its  provisions  are  so  broad  that  the  educational  de 
velopment  of  all  future  time  may  rest  upon  it.  It  ex 
presses  the  final  emancipation  from  formal,  traditional 
and  aristocratic  ideas  and  it  imposes  no  methods  or 
limitations.  It  recognizes  the  democracy  of  education 
and  then  leaves  all  the  means  to  be  worked  out  as  time 
goes  on. x 

This  beneficent  legislation,  passed  by  Congress  in 
the  darkest  hour  of  the  republic,  carried  into  effect 
and  combined  in  a  practical  way  Washington's 
idea  of  national  aid  and  control,  Jefferson's  physio- 
cratic  theory  of  the  fundamental  importance  of 
agriculture,  Franklin's  plans  for  vocational  train 
ing,  and  Lincoln's  plea  for  the  education  of  labor. 

1  The  Rise  of  the  State  Colleges  of  Agriculture  in  Cyclopedia  of 
American  Agriculture,  vol.  iv. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

WOMEN   KNOCKING   AT   THE   COLLEGE   DOOR 

Educate  the  women  and  the  men  will  be  educated.  —  Mary 
Lyon. 

FOR  more  than  two  hundred  years  after  the  first 
colleges  were  established  in  America  their  doors 
were  barred  against  women.  Even  the  rudiments 
of  education  were  grudgingly  granted  in  colonial 
days;  and,  if  any  women  were  bold  enough  to  claim 
the  privilege  of  learning  the  things  that  men  were 
encouraged  to  know,  it  was  at  the  peril  of  social 
disapprobation.  In  the  dame  schools  the  little 
girls  were  taught  to  learn  the  letters  from  horn 
books  as  well  as  from  their  samplers,  and  penman 
ship  was  more  highly  esteemed  as  a  fine  art  than  it 
is  in  these  days  of  typewriters  and  dictaphones. 
We  must  remember,  however,  that  in  the  manifold 
industries  of  the  household  —  cooking,  preserving, 
brewing,  dairying,  soap-making,  gardening,  spin 
ning,  dyeing,  weaving,  millinery,  and  dressmaking 

£33 


234     AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

—  the  girls  of  the  colonial  period  had  advantages 
for  "laboratory  practice"  in  the  fundamental  in 
dustries  such  as  our  million-dollar  technological 
institutes  do  not  afford.  It  was  found  desirable 
in  the  interests  of  domestic  economy  that  they 
should  also  be  taught  elementary  arithmetic. 

In  the  Massachusetts  Ordinance  of  1642,  the 
corner-stone  of  the  public  school  system  of  the 
United  States,  we  see  the  authorities  grappling 
with  the  problem  of  coeducation,  for  they  held 
"that  boys  and  girls  be  not  suffered  to  converse 
together,  so  as  may  occasion  any  wanton,  dis 
honest  or  immodest  behaviour."  But  for  the  first 
century  and  a  half  after  the  settlement  of  the  coun 
try  doors  of  the  grammar  schools  were  kept  pretty 
tightly  closed  to  the  weaker  sex.  The  Hopkins 
School  of  New  Haven  ruled  in  1684  that  "all  girls 
be  excluded  as  improper  and  inconsistent  with  such 
a  grammar  school  as  ye  law  injoines  and  as  is  the 
Designe  of  this  settlement."  In  the  early  part  of 
the  eighteenth  century  three-fourths  of  the  women 
who  were  called  upon  to  sign  legal  documents  had 
to  make  their  mark.  After  the  Revolution,  how 
ever,  a  different  spirit  began  to  prevail,  and  the 
girls  were  allowed  to  receive  instruction  after  school. 
Gloucester  in  1790  passed  an  eight-hour  law  for  its 


WOMEN  AT  THE  COLLEGE  DOOR     235 

schoolmaster  in  order  that  he  might  give  two  hours 
a  day  "to  the  instruction  of  females  —  as  they  are 
a  tender  and  interesting  branch  of  the  community 
but  have  been  much  neglected  in  the  public  schools 
of  this  town."  The  selectmen  of  Portsmouth,  New 
Hampshire,  opened  in  1773  a  school  where  girls 
were  taught  reading,  writing,  arithmetic,  and  geog 
raphy.  David  McClure,  the  Portsmouth  school 
master,  writes  in  his  diary  that  he  had  seventy  or 
eighty  misses  from  seven  to  twenty  years  of  age,  so 
that  he  was  obliged  to  take  half  of  them  in  the  fore 
noon  and  half  in  the  afternoon,  and  he  adds:  "This 
is,  I  believe,  the  only  female  school  (supported 
by  the  town)  in  New  England  and  is  a  wise  and 
useful  institution." 

We  find  Franklin  as  a  boy  arguing  with  his  chum 
in  favor  of  the  "propriety  of  educating  the  female 
sex  in  learning  and  their  abilities  for  study"  and 
later  in  life  recommending  "the  knowledge  of 
accounts  .  .  .  for  our  young  females,  as  likely  to 
be  of  more  use  to  their  children,  in  case  of  widow 
hood,  than  either  music  or  dancing,  by  preserving 
them  from  losses  by  imposition  of  crafty  men  and 
enabling  them  to  continue  perhaps  a  profitable  mer 
cantile  house."  But  even  the  far-sighted  Frank 
lin  could  not  have  foreseen  the  modern  business 


236    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

office  with  a  large  part  of  its  work  done  by 
"young  females,"  who,  in  spite  of  their  clerical 
duties,  manage  somehow  to  find  time  for  "music 
and  dancing." 

New  Orleans  claims  priority  over  New  England 
in  the  matter  of  girls'  schools,  on  the  ground  that  in 
1727  ten  Ursuline  sisters  from  Rouen  established  a 
convent  school  in  that  French  colony.  This  school 
is  still  in  existence  and  now  gives  instruction  in 
English  as  well  as  French.  Before  1750  the  Mo 
ravian  missionaries  had  maintained  a  school  for 
girls  in  Nazareth,  Pennsylvania,  and  in  1802  they 
opened  a  Female  Academy  at  Salem,  North  Caro 
lina.  The  bill  that  Jefferson  introduced  into  the 
Virginia  Assembly  in  1779  provided  for  the  free 
training  of  all  free  children,  girls  as  well  as  boys,  for 
three  years  in  the  three  R's,  but  this  bill  did  not 
pass.  Ten  years  later  Boston  opened  elementary 
schools  for  girls  and  in  1826  a  girls'  grammar  school. 

But  for  the  most  part  and  for  many  years  after 
this,  women  had  to  be  content  with  such  crumbs  of 
learning  as  fell  from  the  master's  table.  Here  and 
there  a  bright  ambitious  girl  might  borrow  her 
brother's  books  and  rival  him  in  his  preparatory 
studies,  but  when  he  went  off  to  college  she  could 
not  follow  him.  Before  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 


WOMEN  AT  THE  COLLEGE  DOOR     237 

century  Lucinda  Foot  was  certificated  as  qualified 
for  entrance  to  Yale  but  was  debarred  from  enter 
ing.  The  feminine  mind  was  thought  incapable  of 
the  serious  learning  and  logical  thought  involved 
in  the  study  of  the  ancient  languages,  higher  mathe 
matics,  and  natural  sciences.  This  belief  could  be 
held  only  so  long  as  no  opportunity  was  afforded  to 
demonstrate  the  contrary.  After  it  was  found  not 
impossible  for  women  to  acquire  higher  education, 
such  a  course  was  still  held  to  be  undesirable.  In 
the  coeducational  seminaries  of  New  York  and 
New  England  all  studies  were  theoretically  open  to 
both  sexes,  but  a  girl  who  insisted  upon  taking 
Greek  was  regarded,  even  down  to  the  Civil  War, 
much  as  a  girl  would  nowadays  who  insisted  upon 
playing  baseball.  She  might  do  it  after  a  fashion, 
but  she  would  be  looked  upon  as  offensively  mas 
culine,  and  the  better  she  did  it  the  worse  for  her 
reputation.  In  the  course  of  time  the  situation  has 
been  curiously  reversed,  and  now  in  some  of  our 
coeducational  colleges  a  boy  who  studies  Greek  is 
regarded  as  effeminate. 

The  studies  that  in  the  early  days  were  regarded 
as  proper  for  young  ladies  were  the  English  and 
French  languages,  with  a  cautious  selection  of 
polite  literature  in  these  languages,  a  little  history, 


238    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

or  rather  biography,  devotional  and  moral  reading, 
and  such  ornamental  arts  as  music,  sketching,  and 
dancing.  In  science  astronomy  was  preferred  as 
less  demoralizing  than  zoology  or  botany  and  less 
hard  on  the  hands  and  nose  than  chemistry.  The 
astronomy  taught  was  sometimes  and  quite  prop 
erly  called  "Geography  of  the  Heavens,"  since  it 
consisted  largely  of  learning  to  call  the  constella 
tions  by  their  mythological  names.  But  when 
Vassar,  the  first  college  for  women,  was  opened  in 
1865,  it  could  boast  of  possessing  the  second  largest 
telescope  in  the  United  States  and  the  greatest 
woman  astronomer,  Maria  Mitchell. 

The  first  General  Assembly  of  Alabama  in  1820 
passed  a  bill  to  establish  a  common  school  in  every 
district,  an  academy  in  every  county,  and  a  State 
University  with  a  branch  for  "female  education"; 
but  this  ambitious  project  was  never  carried  out. 
To  provide  for  the  needs  of  the  women  of  the 
South  many  seminaries,  institutes,  and  colleges  were 
started  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century 
by  Catholics,  Baptists,  Methodists,  "Christians," 
Presbyterians,  Masons,  Odd  Fellows,  and  private 
individuals.1  Some  of  these  institutions  were  for 

1  A  full  list  of  these  are  given  in  I.  M.  E.  Blandin's  History  of 
Higher  Education  of  Women  in  the  South  (1909). 


WOMEN  AT  THE  COLLEGE  DOOR     239 

girls  only,  and  some  were  coeducational.  Of  these 
Elizabeth  Academy,  established  by  the  Methodists 
in  1818  at  Old  Washington,  Mississippi,  and  char 
tered  as  a  college  two  years  later,  claims  to  have 
been  the  first  in  the  United  States  to  provide  col 
lege  training  for  women.  Georgia  Female  College, 
chartered  in  1836  and  now  known  as  the  Wesley  an 
Female  College  of  Macon,  files  a  conflicting  claim 
to  be  the  "oldest  regularly  chartered  institution  for 
conferring  degrees  upon  wromen  in  America,  if  not 
in  the  entire  world."  Three  years  later  the  Judson 
Female  Institute  was  established  at  Marion,  Ala 
bama,  by  the  Reverend  Milo  P.  Jewett,  afterwards 
President  of  Vassar  College. 

While  the  South  was  thus  striving  to  open  edu 
cational  opportunities  to  women,  the  North  was 
making  similar  efforts  and  ultimately  achieved 
greater  success.  In  1818  Mrs.  Emma  Hart  Willard, 
wife  of  a  college  professor  of  Middlebury,  published 
an  Address  to  the  Public  outlining  A  Plan  for  Im 
proving  Female  Education  which  was  at  once  bold 
and  practical.  Though,  as  she  said,  "the  absurd 
ity  of  sending  ladies  to  college  may,  at  first 
thought,  strike  every  one  to  whom  this  subject 
shall  be  proposed,"  there  were  some  men  to  whom 
the  idea  did  not  seem  an  "absurdity."  Adams  of 


240    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

Massachusetts  and  Jefferson  of  Virginia  favored 
the  idea,  and  a  bill  appropriating  $2000  was  intro 
duced  into  the  New  York  Legislature.  This  meas 
ure  passed  the  Senate  but  failed  in  the  Assembly. 
But  the  city  of  Troy  raised  $4000  and  established 
in  1821  the  institution  that  is  today  known  as  the 
Emma  Willard  Seminary. 

In  1822  Catherine  Esther  Beecher  founded  the 
Hartford  Female  Seminary,  which  was  for  many 
years  the  leading  school  for  the  higher  education 
of  women  in  America.  The  daughter  of  Lyman 
Beecher  and  sharing  the  brilliant  gifts  of  his  unique 
family,  Catherine  did  not  lack  the  enthusiasm,  ini 
tiative,  and  originality  necessary  to  a  pioneer  in 
unpopular  enterprises.  She  organized  a  Female 
Seminary  in  Cincinnati,  lectured  in  the  South  and 
West  on  the  subject  of  education,  especially  for 
women,  and  wrote  several  stimulating  and  sugges 
tive  books.  One  of  her  hobbies  was  training  in 
domestic  science  in  order  "that  women  may  be 
healthful,  intelligent,  and  successful  wives,  mothers, 
and  housekeepers."  But  nowadays  this  specialized 
study  of  "household  engineering"  is  common  in  all 
coeducational  institutions  and  is  being  introduced 
into  the  colleges  for  women. 

But  neither  Mrs.  Willard  nor  Miss  Beecher  was 


WOMEN  AT  THE  COLLEGE  DOOR 

so  successful  as  a  young  teacher  associated  with 
them  in  these  pioneer  enterprises,  a  lively,  good- 
humored,  fast  talking,  untidy,  red-headed,  rosy 
cheeked,  pious  country  girl  named  Mary  Lyon. 
None  knew  better  than  she  the  value  of  an  educa 
tion,  for  few  had  worked  so  hard  for  one.  Mary 
Lyon  was  born  in  Buckland,  Massachusetts,  in 
1797.  Her  father  died  when  she  was  six,  leaving 
the  widow  to  run  the  mountain  farm  with  the  aid 
of  her  six  daughters  and  one  son  aged  thirteen. 
When  she  was  ten  years  old,  Mary  got  a  chance  to 
work  for  her  board  at  Ashfield  and  attend  school. 
At  sixteen  she  was  teaching  school  for  seventy-five 
cents  a  week  and  board  —  a  good  teacher,  although 
not  quite  secure  in  her  position  because  she  laughed 
too  easily.  But  she  saved  all  her  salary  and  by  the 
time  she  was  twenty  she  had  earned  enough  more 
by  spinning,  dyeing,  and  weaving  to  pay  for  her 
tuition  at  Sanderson  Academy  in  Ashfield.  "No 
one  could  study  like  Mary  Lyon  and  no  one  could 
clean  the  schoolroom  with  such  dispatch,"  said  a 
fellow-student.  When  she  applied  for  instruction 
in  Latin,  the  teacher  tried  to  discourage  her  by 
putting  into  her  hands  a  Latin  grammar  as  she  left 
the  school  on  Friday  night,  but  Mary  turned  up 
Monday  morning  with  much  of  it  learned  by  heart 

16 


AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

and  with  a  troubled  conscience  for  having  infringed 
the  fourth  commandment.  She  proved  to  be  the 
most  brilliant  classical  scholar  of  the  academy,  and 
although  she  worked  night  and  day,  often  with 
only  four  hours'  sleep,  nothing  weakened  her  health 
and  enthusiasm.  She  put  herself  through  a  rigor 
ous  process  of  self-training  to  correct  the  defects 
of  her  childhood  and  to  learn  to  speak  grammati 
cally,  dress  neatly,  and  avoid  eccentricities  in  order 
that  she  might  achieve  the  aim  of  her  life,  the  es 
tablishment  of  an  institution  where  women  could 
get  a  higher  education  than  had  been  hitherto  open 
to  them.  She  was  quick  to  catch  and  apply  new 
ideas  in  education.  The  Pestalozzian  principle  of 
engaging  the  active  interest  of  the  pupil  by  con 
crete  and  objective  methods  appealed  particularly 
to  her,  and  she  adopted  it  while  teaching  at  Buck- 
land.  History  she  taught  as  a  living  thing.  Men 
tal  arithmetic  was  her  hobby.  The  experimental 
method  of  teaching  chemistry  she  acquired  at  the 
Rensselaer  Polytechnic  Institute  at  Troy  where,  as 
we  have  seen,  the  founder  insisted  upon  it  from  the 
start.  Rensselaer,  founded  to  give  instruction  to 
boys  and  girls  in  agriculture  and  mechanic  arts, 
subsequently  dropped  both  the  agriculture  and  the 
girls  but  fortunately  not  before  it  had  educated 


WOMEN  AT  THE  COLLEGE  DOOR     243 

Mary  Lyon.  For  further  knowledge  of  chemistry 
and  physics  she  was  indebted  to  Professor  Edward 
Hitchcock  of  Amherst  College. 

Thus  equipped  as  a  teacher,  but  without  money 
or  influential  friends  and  in  the  face  of  popular  and 
professional  prejudice,  she  started  upon  the  ap 
palling  task  of  raising  money  for  an  unprecedented 
undertaking.  In  three  years  she  had  raised  $68,- 
500  and  had  put  up  buildings  at  South  Hadley, 
Massachusetts.  Though  she  was  told  that  no  girls 
would  come  to  such  an  institution,  she  provid 
ed  accommodations  for  eighty-five.  On  opening 
the  doors  in  1837  she  took  in  over  a  hundred  girls 
and  had  to  turn  away  many  more.  The  infant 
institution  was  christened  "Mount  Holyoke  Fe 
male  Seminary"  in  preference  to  "The  Pangynse- 
kean"  as  Professor  Hitchcock  proposed  to  call 
it.  W.  S.  Tyler,  a  trustee  of  Mount  Holyoke 
Seminary  and  later  of  Smith,  says  of  the  criticism 
it  encountered :  "It  was  unnatural,  unphilosophi- 
cal,  unscriptural,  unpractical  and  impracticable, 
unfeminine  and  anti-Christian,  in  short  all  the  epi 
thets  in  the  dictionary  that  begin  with  'un-'  and 
'in-'  and  'anti-'  were  hurled  against  it  and  heaped 
upon  it." 

Mary  Lyon  was  not  deceived  by  the  prevailing 


244    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

fallacy  of  the  day  that  an  institution  could  be 
made  self-supporting  by  employing  the  students  at 
productive  labor  but,  being  a  believer  in  the  gospel 
of  work,  she  planned  to  have  the  necessary  house 
work  of  the  establishment  done  by  the  girls  them 
selves  in  order  that  they  might  reduce  expenses,  get 
exercise,  and,  when  they  later  became  mistresses  of 
their  own  home,  be  free  "from  servile  dependence 
on  common  domestics."  The  work  required  of 
students  at  Mount  Holyoke,  however,  was  grad 
ually  reduced  to  the  care  of  their  own  rooms,  and 
now  even  this  requirement  has  been  dropped. 

For  a  dozen  years  after  Mount  Holyoke  was 
opened,  Miss  Lyon  remained  to  manage  its  affairs, 
inspire  its  teachers,  and  give  the  girls  the  benefit 
of  her  sensible  philosophy  of  life.  She  used  to  warn 
them  that  it  is  "  the  mark  of  a  weak  mind  to  be  con 
tinually  comparing  the  sexes  and  disputing  and 
making  out  the  female  sex  as  something  great  and 
superior."  And  again  she  said:  "Never  teach  the 
immortal  mind  for  money.  If  money-making  is 
your  object,  be  milliners  or  dressmakers,  but  teach 
ing  is  a  sacred,  not  a  mercenary  employment." 
What  she  preached  she  practiced.  She  never  re 
ceived  more  than  $260  a  year  for  teaching.  She 
never  wrote  a  book  or  even  an  article  on  educa- 


WOMEN  AT  THE  COLLEGE  DOOR     246 

tional  methodology.    Yet  she  is  accounted  one  of 
the  great  American  educators. 

Although  Mount  Holyoke  Seminary  was  a  great 
step  in  advance,  it  did  not  yet  offer  women  the 
opportunity  for  collegiate  education.  It  was  not 
chartered  as  a  college  until  1888,  and  it  was  five 
years  after  that  before  it  was  fully  prepared  to 
carry  on  collegiate  instruction.  For  the  first  true 
colleges  open  to  women  we  must  turn  to  the  West 
and  especially  to  an  institution  which,  though 
widely  different  from  the  New  England  seminary 
in  most  respects,  was  yet  founded  in  the  same  spirit 
of  democracy,  economy,  piety,  and  industry.  Ober- 
lin  Collegiate  Institute,  named  after  the  Alsatian 
pastor  and  founder  of  infant  schools,  Jean  Fred 
eric  Oberlin,  was  started  in  the  wilderness  of  Ohio 
by  two  Congregational  home  missionaries,  John  J. 
Shipherd  and  Philo  P.  Stewart,  who  planned  a 
novel  kind  of  collegiate  community  with  many  of 
the  advantages  of  individual  land  ownership.  The 
colonists  signing  the  "Oberlin  Covenant"  agreed 
"to  hold  and  manage  our  estates  personally  but 
pledge  a  perfect  community  of  interest  as  though 
we  held  a  community  of  property."  Like  others, 
the  institution  was  intended  to  be  self-supporting 
through  the  manual  labor  of  the  students  for  four 


246    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

hours  a  day;  and,  like  others,  it  failed  in  this 
respect.  The  community  farm,  sawmill,  flour- 
mill,  and  workshop  were  later  sold,  and  the  colony 
idea  was  abandoned,  but  the  institute  nevertheless 
survived  all  vicissitudes.  Few  if  any  colleges  have 
had  so  much  opposition  to  contend  with,  because 
few  if  any  have  so  radically  opposed  the  prevailing 
ideas  of  their  day.  The  intentions  of  the  founders 
are  set  forth  in  their  first  report  as  follows: 

The  grand  object  is  the  diffusion  of  useful  science, 
sound  morality,  and  pure  religion  among  the  growing 
multitudes  of  the  Mississippi  valley.  It  aims  also  at 
bearing  an  important  part  in  extending  these  bless 
ings  to  the  destitute  millions  that  overspread  the 
earth.  For  this  purpose  it  proposes  as  its  primary  ob 
ject  the  thorough  education  of  ministers  and  pious 
school  teachers;  as  a  secondary  object  the  eleva 
tion  of  female  character.  And  as  a  third  general  de 
sign,  the  education  of  the  common  people  with  the 
higher  classes  in  such  a  manner  as  suits  the  nature  of 
republican  institutions. 

This  was  an  ambitious  programme  for  a  little 
wooden  building  in  a  clearing  of  the  backwoods  of 
Ohio,  but  the  most  remarkable  thing  about  it  is 
that  the  programme  has  been  carried  out.  In  1833 
Oberlin  opened  with  twenty-nine  men  and  fifteen 
women.  Thus  was  started  the  first  coeducational 


WOMEN  AT  THE  COLLEGE  DOOR     247 

college  in  the  world.  By  1839  it  challenged  com 
parison  with  the  best  colleges  by  publishing  in  its 
catalogue  the  Yale  curriculum  in  parallel  column 
with  its  own.  Seventy-nine  women  had  received 
the  A.B.  degree  at  Oberlin  before  1865  when  Vassar, 
the  first  women's  college,  opened;  and  two  hundred 
and  ninety  had  passed  through  the  ladies'  seminary 
course  there.  The  radicalism  of  Oberlin  did  not 
stop  with  the  admission  of  women:  it  admitted 
negroes  as  students.  In  the  same  year,  1834, 
when  Oberlin  opened  its  doors  to  freedmen,  Miss 
Prudence  Crandall  was  indicted  and  imprisoned 
in  Canterbury,  Connecticut,  for  maintaining  a 
"school  for  colored  misses"  contrary  to  a  special 
act  of  the  Legislature.  Oberlin  also,  because  of  its 
abolition  principles,  was  in  danger  of  destruction 
by  mob  violence,  and  its  funds  were  for  a  time  cut 
off.  But  the  first  president  of  Oberlin,  the  Rever 
end  Asa  Mahan,  a  graduate  of  Hamilton  College 
and  Andover  Theological  Seminary,  was  an  un 
compromising  champion  of  free  speech  and  equal 
rights.  He  had  been  a  trustee  in  Lane  Theological 
Seminary  in  Cincinnati  but  seceded  from  that  in 
stitution  with  four-fifths  of  the  students  because 
they  were  forbidden  to  discuss  the  question  of 
slavery.  The  second  president  of  Oberlin,  the 


248    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

Reverend  Charles  G.  Finney,  was  in  his  way  no 
less  radical.  He  was  a  converted  lawyer,  "per 
manently  retained  by  Jesus  Christ"  as  he  put  it, 
and  one  of  the  foremost  evangelists  of  his  day. 
After  building  the  Broadway  Tabernacle  in  New 
York,  he  went  West  to  become  professor  of  theol 
ogy  in  Oberlin  and  later  president.  There  he  had 
to  meet  a  double  opposition  —  from  the  church 
because  of  his  heretical  views,  and  from  the  popu 
lace  because  of  his  teetotalism.  But  in  spite  of 
everything  Oberlin  stuck  to  its  principles  and 
thrived  on  persecution.  Today  it  is  a  prosper 
ous  college  of  some  two  thousand  students  and  — 
since  the  world  has  caught  up  with  it  —  scarcely 
distinguishable  from  neighboring  institutions. 

Other  colleges  in  Ohio  and  adjacent  States  fol 
lowed  the  path  that  Oberlin  had  broken.  Horace 
Mann  adopted  coeducation  when  he  founded  An- 
tioch  College,  Ohio,  in  1853.  Other  pioneer  insti 
tutions  which  deserve  honorable  mention  for  their 
admission  of  women  are,  without  reference  to  their 
disputed  claims  of  priority:  Lawrence  College  at 
Appleton,  Wisconsin  (opened  1849);  Cornell  Col 
lege  at  Mount  Vernon,  Iowa  (1857);  Baker  Uni 
versity  at  Baldwin,  Kansas  (1858);  and  Lombard 
University  at  Galesburg,  Illinois  (1851).  Nearly 


WOMEN  AT  THE  COLLEGE  DOOR     249 

all  of  the  State  Universities  were  coeducational 
from  the  start:  Iowa,  1856,  Washington,  1862, 
Kansas,  1866,  Minnesota,  1868;  and  the  others  one 
by  one  adopted  this  system  before  the  end  of  the 
century.  In  all  the  Western  States  women  now 
have  access  to  higher  education  on  practically  the 
same  terms  as  men. 

In  the  East,  however,  it  was  different.  The  old 
colleges  refused  to  open  their  doors  to  women,  and 
many  of  them  are  still  closed.  It  was  therefore 
found  to  be  necessary  and  deemed  to  be  desirable 
to  open  separate  colleges  for  women.  To  Mat 
thew  Vassar,  a  millionaire  brewer  of  Poughkeep- 
sie,  New  York,  it  occurred  —  or  was  suggested  by 
his  friend,  the  Reverend  Milo  P.  Jewett —  "that 
woman,  having  received  from  her  Creator  the  same 
intellectual  constitution  as  man,  has  the  same 
right  as  man  to  intellectual  culture  and  develop 
ment.'*  This  right  —  the  most  important  because 
the  most  fundamental  of  woman's  rights  —  was 
denied  almost  everywhere  in  1850,  but  today  nearly 
every  State  affords  full  and  free  opportunities  for 
collegiate  and  university  education. 

It  was  Vassar's  intention  "  to  build  and  endow  a 
college  for  women  that  shall  be  to  them  what  Yale 
and  Harvard  are  to  young  men,"  and  he  carried 


250    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

out  this  intention.  "Vassar  Female  College"  was 
chartered  in  1861  and  opened  in  1865.  In  the 
words  of  Miss  M.  Carey  Thomas,  president  of 
Bryn  Mawr,1  "in  Vassar  we  have  the  legitimate 
parent  of  all  future  colleges  for  women  which  were 
to  be  founded  in  such  rapid  succession  in  the  next 
period."  These,  like  Vassar,  owe  their  existence 
mainly  to  the  beneficence  of  some  wealthy  philan- 
thopist.  Wellesley  College,  founded  near  Boston 
by  Henry  F.  Durant  "for  the  glory  of  God  by  the 
education  and  culture  of  women,"  was  opened  in 
1875.  Smith  College  at  Northampton,  Massachu 
setts,  founded  by  the  bequest  of  half  a  million  by 
Miss  Sophia  Smith,  was  also  opened  in  1875.  Bryn 
Mawr  College,  founded  by  Joseph  W.  Taylor  at 
Bryn  Mawr,  near  Philadelphia,  and  chartered  in 
1880,  was  in  operation  five  years  later.  Wells 
College  at  Aurora,  New  York,  was  founded  by 
Henry  Wells  and  E.  R.  Morgan  and  was  chartered 
as  a  college  in  1870. 

In  spite  of  these  and  other  separate  colleges  for 
women,  the  demand  for  the  admission  of  women  to 
the  opportunities  of  the  great  universities  became 
so  great  that  some  provision  had  to  be  made  for 

1  Education  of  Women  in  Butler's  Monographs  on  Education  in 
the  United  States. 


WOMEN  AT  THE  COLLEGE  DOOR     251 

them.  A  women's  "Annex "  to  Harvard  which  was 
started  in  1879  developed  by  1894  into  Radcliffe 
College,  affiliated  with  Harvard  University.  Bar 
nard  College  for  women,  which  forms  a  part  of 
Columbia  University,  began  its  work  in  1889. 

In  various  ways,  according  to  the  social  condi 
tions  and  ideals  prevailing  in  different  localities, 
the  need  for  the  higher  education  of  women  has 
been  met.  Coeducation  is  not  popular,  or  at  least 
not  fashionable,  in  the  East;  but  there  are  in  New 
York  State  alone  three  coeducational  universities 
of  over  six  thousand  students  each  —  Cornell, 
Syracuse,  and  New  York.  All  the  leading  univer 
sities  of  the  country,  East  or  West,  with  the  excep 
tion  of  Princeton  and  some  Catholic  institutions, 
admit  women  to  summer  schools  or  make  other 
provision  for  them.  At  Columbia  and  Yale  women 
are  admitted  to  the  regular  graduate  course  on  the 
same  terms  as  men. 

Of  the  563  colleges  and  universities  listed  in  the 
1916  Report  of  the  United  States  Commissioner  of 
Education  about  sixty  per  cent  are  coeducational, 
twenty-five  per  cent  are  for  men  only,  and  fifteen 
per  cent  are  for  women  only.  Of  the  institutions 
that  exclude  women  more  than  a  third  are  Roman 
Catholic,  and  many  of  the  others  are  technical 


252    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

schools  or  theological  seminaries.  Coeducational 
schools  now  provide  about  ninety-six  per  cent  of 
the  elementary  education  and  ninety  per  cent  o* 
the  secondary  education  in  the  United  States. 
The  attendance  of  women  at  institutions  of  higher 
education  has  more  than  doubled  since  1893.  The 
trend  for  three  decades  is  shown  by  the  following 
figures : 

ENROLLMENT    OF   WOMEN 

In  women's  In  coeducational 

colleges  colleges 

1893  12,300  13,058 

1903  16,744  26,990 

1913  19,142  55,564 

If  we  regard  the  high  schools  as  giving  a  liberal 
education  —  and  some  of  them  are  better  than  the 
colleges  of  a  hundred  years  ago  —  more  women 
than  men  are  being  liberally  educated.  The  appre 
hensions  formerly  entertained  of  physical,  mental, 
and  moral  injury  to  women  through  college  work 
have  been  proved  illusory  by  a  half  century  of  ex 
perience,  and  the  only  questions  now  under  dis 
cussion  concern  the  place  and  the  character  of  such 
education. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE   NEW   EDUCATION 

The  democracy  which  proclaims  equality  of  opportunity  as  its 
ideal  requires  an  education  in  which  learning  and  social  applica 
tion,  ideas  and  practice,  work  and  recognition  of  the  meaning  of 
what  is  done,  are  united  from  the  beginning  and  for  all. — John 
Dewey. 

WHAT  is  "the  new  education?"  And  why  is  it 
called  "new"?  The  second  question  is  perhaps 
harder  to  answer  than  the  first.  The  new  educa 
tion  is  distinguished  by  the  broadness  of  its  course 
of  study.  It  is  probable  that  the  boy  or  girl  of  ten 
in  a  good  city  school  is  now  learning  a  greater 
variety  of  interesting  and  important  things  than 
the  average  university  student  of  a  century  ago. 
Public  education  began  with  what  may  be  called 
the  "tool"  subjects  —  reading,  writing,  and  arith 
metic  —  because  they  are  chiefly  important  as 
instruments  in  the  acquisition  and  use  of  informa 
tion  rather  than  bodies  of  knowledge  in  themselves. 
Then  in  the  early  days  of  the  republic  there  were 
added  "information"  or  "content"  subjects,  such 

253 


254    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

as  geography,  history,  and  natural  science.  In 
very  recent  years  what  may  be  called  "self -expres 
sion"  subjects,  including  music,  drawing,  cooking, 
carpentry,  and  calisthenics,  were  introduced  into 
the  schools  as  fast  as  public  opinion  would  permit. 
All  these  have  their  practical  side  and  in  a  sense 
are  "tool"  subjects  as  truly  as  the  three  R's,  but 
they  are  also  designed  to  provide  an  opportunity 
for  a  motor  response  which  would  balance  the  ab 
stract  and  bookish  studies  and  give  the  child  who 
thinks  in  concrete  terms  a  chance  to  show  practical 
ability  and  constructive  skill. 

More  significant  than  the  change  in  the  curricu 
lum  is  the  alteration  which  took  place  in  the  rela 
tion  between  teacher  and  pupil.  The  attempt  to 
reduce  an  active  child  to  a  state  of  passive  obe 
dience  in  which  he  would  offer  the  least  resistance 
to  the  information  poured  into  him  has  largely 
given  place  to  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  teacher 
to  entice  the  dull  or  shy  youngster  into  activity. 
The  old  schoolroom  motto  was:  "Don't  speak 
until  you  are  spoken  to!"  The  new  motto  might 
well  be:  "Tell  me  what  your  thought's  like." 

Finally,  the  new  education  postpones  the  in 
troduction  of  a  new  subject  until  the  child  can 
understand  its  use  in  his  own  life.  There  can  be  no 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION  255 

question  of  the  soundness  of  the  principle  that  the 
form  in  which  instruction  is  given  should  always 
take  into  consideration  the  age  of  the  child  and  his 
interests  at  that  age,  although  once  in  a  while  the 
teacher  is  disconcerted  by  finding  a  pupil  who  ad 
vances  too  rapidly  in  the  scale  of  evolution  and  who 
wants  to  read  Alexander  Pope  when  he  "ought" 
to  be  enraptured  with  Indian  life  as  depicted 
in  Hiawatha. 

To  a  great  extent  the  new  education  is  new  only 
in  the  sense  that  the  school  now  teaches  what  once 
was  learned  outside  its  walls.  The  twentieth  cen 
tury  lad  who  learns  at  school  to  swim,  to  play  ball, 
to  build  bird-houses,  to  care  for  a  vegetable  garden, 
or  to  mend  a  broken  lock,  and  the  girl  who  studies 
cooking,  sewing,  housework,  first  aid  to  the  injured, 
and  piano  practice,  may  graduate  no  wiser  than 
the  children  of  a  past  generation  who  did  all  these 
things  on  the  farm  and  went  to  school  for  a  few 
weeks  in  winter  to  learn  spelling  and  copper-plate 
penmanship.  The  new  methods  in  education  are 
largely  based  on  principles  that  have  been  the  com 
monplaces  of  educational  theorists  for  generations. 
But  it  is  not  often  that  the  theorist  and  the  practi 
cal  teacher  are  one.  In  America,  especially,  the 
new  education  has  come  into  existence  from  the 


256    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

actual  experience  of  teachers  who  had  a  genuine 
love  of  children  and  an  experimental  habit  of  mind 
but  very  little  educational  tradition  behind  them. 
America  has  produced  several  great  school  organ 
izers  and  many  great  teachers  but  less  than  her 
share  of  distinguished  educational  philosophers. 
The  little  republic  of  Switzerland,  which  was  the 
birthplace  of  Rousseau  and  Pestalozzi  and  which 
gave  to  this  country  our  most  inspiring  teacher  of 
zoology,  Louis  Agassiz,  and  the  man  who  revolu 
tionized  the  teaching  of  geography  in  our  schools, 
Arnold  Guyot,  has  made  a  greater  proportionate 
contribution  to  educational  science  than  the  United 
States.  America  has  achieved  distinction  chiefly 
in  the  realization  of  educational  reforms  in  current 
practice.  And  this  we  owe  not  only  to  such  leaders 
as  Mann,  Barnard,  and  Clinton,  but  to  the  faith 
ful  work  of  the  rank  and  file  of  teachers  in  school 
and  college. 

Very  rarely  have  even  the  ablest  teachers  risen 
to  a  place  in  history,  unless  they  came  into  promi 
nence  by  their  public  activities  or  their  productive 
scholarship  or  after  leaving  the  profession.  When 
they  have  become  famous  as  teachers  it  is  usually 
because  their  genius  has  been  reflected  in  the  repu 
tation  attained  by  their  pupils  in  more  spectacular 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION  257 

fields.  While  Mark  Hopkins,  to  select  but  one 
example,  was  President  of  Williams  College,  there 
were  graduated  men  later  prominent  in  varied 
fields:  Supreme  Court  Justice  Stephen  J.  Field; 
David  A.  Wells,  the  economist;  William  Keith 
Brooks,  the  zoologist;  James  H.  Canfield,  the 
librarian ;  Senator  John  J.  Ingalls  of  Kansas ;  Gen 
eral  Samuel  C.  Armstrong,  founder  of  Hampton 
Institute;  and  President  James  A.  Garfield.  Gar- 
field  paid  to  his  old  college  president  the  famous 
tribute  that  a  student  on  one  end  of  a  log  and  Mark 
Hopkins  on  the  other  would  make  a  university  any 
where.  We  might  also  include  in  this  list  of  Wil 
liams  men  two  popular  authors,  Eugene  Field  and 
E.  P.  Roe,  although  they  did  not  stay  to  take  their 
degrees.  The  mention  of  General  Armstrong  sug 
gests  another  good  example  of  what  one  might 
term  "educational  heredity,"  for  it  was  at  Hamp 
ton  Institute  that  Booker  T.  Washington  received 
his  education,  and  he  in  turn  taught  in  Tuskegee 
Institute  many  of  the  leaders  of  the  negro  race  and 
the  educators  of  yet  another  generation. 

From  the  American  teachers  who  have  intro 
duced  new  methods  into  the  schools  it  seems  an 
injustice  to  select  any,  because  there  is  no  State  in 
the  Union  and  probably  no  large  community  that 


858    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

cannot  remember  the  coming  of  a  teacher  whom 
pupils  and  parents  recognized  as  "different,"  who 
turned  courses  of  study  upside  down,  introduced 
novel  methods,  and  broke  down  the  barriers  which 
custom  had  erected  between  the  teacher  and  the 
taught.  The  careers  of  very  few  must  be  taken 
as  typical  of  the  lives  and  work  of  many,  equally 
devoted  and  equally  successful. 

One  of  the  names  that  comes  most  easily  to  mind 
is  that  of  Edward  Austin  Sheldon,  who  founded  the 
normal  school  at  Oswego,  New  York.  He  did  not 
begin  his  career,  however,  by  teaching  educational 
method  but  by  teaching  the  children  of  the  slums 
to  read  and  write.  While  living  in  Oswego  he  was 
much  affected  by  the  misery  of  the  city  poor  and 
even  more  so  by  their  ignorance.  He  helped  to 
found  a  "Free  School  Association"  and  was  re 
warded  for  his  efforts  by  being  chosen  as  school 
master  at  three  hundred  dollars  a  year.  What  the 
youngsters  thought  of  his  teaching  may  best  be 
summarized  in  the  words  of  his  daughter:  "As  my 
father  went  to  work  of  a  morning  his  warm-hearted 
Irish  children  trooped  about  him,  seizing  him  by 
the  fingers  or  the  coat-tails,  wherever  they  could 
best  catch  hold,  to  the  great  amusement  of  the 
storekeepers  and  the  passers-by." 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION  259 

So  well  did  the  free  school  in  Oswego  prosper 
that  Sheldon  was  called  to  be  superintendent  of 
schools  in  the  city  of  Syracuse  and  later  in  Oswego. 
As  superintendent  in  these  two  cities,  he  made  the 
school  system  a  means  to  the  education  of  the 
teachers  as  well  as  the  children.  His  great  reform 
was  in  decreasing  the  use  of  the  text-book  and  in 
creasing  the  use  of  object  lessons.  No  teacher 
could  longer  shelter  incompetence  with  the  speller 
and  the  geography  and  reduce  the  art  of  instruction 
to  routine  question  and  answer.  From  behind  the 
fallen  breastworks  of  the  book  emerged  a  human 
being,  the  teacher,  who  entered  into  a  personal 
relationship  with  the  children  and  taught  from  his 
own  knowledge  and  with  his  own  skill. 

Using  the  experience  he  had  gathered  as  a 
teacher  and  a  school  superintendent,  Edward 
Sheldon  started  a  normal  school  in  1861.  The  new 
methods  of  instruction  had  one  disadvantage  as 
compared  with  the  old;  they  were  not  fool-proof. 
Anybody  could  teach  geology  or  botany  from  a 
book,  but  to  teach  such  subjects  from  specimens 
required  skill  to  prevent  instruction  from  degen 
erating  into  the  presentation  of  a  mere  assortment 
of  unrelated  scraps  of  fact.  Therefore  school 
masters  who  were  simply  told  by  a  superintendent 


260    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

that  the  time  had  come  to  introduce  the  "object 
method"  in  their  classes  were  often  wholly  at  a 
loss  how  to  set  about  doing  it.  To  meet  this  need 
the  Oswego  normal  school  was  founded.  It  was 
not  the  first  normal  school  in  the  country,  but  it 
was  for  its  time  the  most  influential,  not  only 
because  of  the  new  methods  introduced  but  even 
more  from  the  inspiring  presence  of  Sheldon  and 
the  able  corps  of  assistants  whom  he  brought  to  the 
school  from  different  parts  of  the  country  and  from 
foreign  nations.  Edward  Sheldon  remained  head 
of  the  school  until  his  death  in  1897. 

One  of  the  most  radical  innovators  who  ever 
taught  in  an  American  school  was  the  gentle  New 
England  philosopher,  Amos  Bronson  Alcott.  Al- 
cott  was  born  on  a  Connecticut  farm,  but  he  spent 
much  of  his  youth  peddling  books  through  the 
South.  Returning  to  Connecticut  in  1823,  he  took 
up  school  teaching  —  the  usual  trade  in  those  days 
for  a  bookish  Yankee  who  did  not  know  just  what 
use  he  could  make  of  his  talents.  In  his  school  at 
Cheshire  he  forthwith  began  to  try  various  experi 
ments.  He  abolished  the  old  long  benches  and 
gave  a  separate  seat  and  desk  to  every  scholar, 
introduced  the  use  of  blackboards,  and  started  a 
school  library.  He  gave  gymnastics  and  nature 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION  261 

study  a  far  more  prominent  place  in  the  course  of 
study  than  had  been  the  custom  even  in  the  best 
schools.  Perhaps  the  greatest  change  he  intro 
duced  was  in  the  method  of  discipline.  He  shared 
the  task  of  keeping  order  with  his  pupils  by  in 
stituting  school  "juries"  to  try  offenses  against  the 
rules.  Definite  offices  were  assigned  to  the  children, 
such  as  superintendent,  recorder,  librarian,  and 
conservator.  Within  a  few  years  from  the  begin 
ning  of  his  pedagogical  career  Alcott  had  attained 
the  distinction  of  teaching  what  was  called  "the 
best  common  School  in  this  State,  perhaps  in  the 
United  States."  In  return  for  his  labors,  Alcott 
received  nation-wide  fame  and  twenty-seven 
dollars  a  month. 

But  such  prosperity  could  not  continue.  So 
many  reforms  at  once  aroused  the  fears  of  anxious 
parents  that  Alcott  was  using  his  school  to  try  out 
pet  theories  on  their  children  while  neglecting  the 
fundamentals  of  sound  knowledge  and  strict  dis 
cipline.  Forced  to  resume  his  travels,  Alcott  under 
took  teaching  in  Boston,  in  Philadelphia,  and  in 
several  smaller  cities,  but  his  obstinate  refusal  to 
compromise  with  the  kind  of  education  which  par 
ents  usually  expected  made  it  impossible  for  him  to 
hold  one  position  for  any  great  length  of  time. 


262    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

Emerson  said  of  this  "American  Pestalozzi," 
as  he  was  sometimes  called:  "Alcott  declares  that 
a  teacher  is  one  who  can  assist  the  child  in  obeying 
his  own  mind.  ...  He  measures  ages  by  leaders 
and  reckons  history  by  Pythagoras,  Plato,  Jesus  — 
and  Pestalozzi.  In  his  own  school  in  Boston  when 
he  had  made  the  schoolroom  beautiful  he  looked  on 
the  work  as  half  done." 

What  sort  of  education  Alcott  had  in  mind  when 
he  opened  his  school  at  the  Masonic  Temple  at 
Boston  may  be  seen  in  quotations  from  his  diary 
of  1835: 

In  addition  to  the  statuary  and  painting  at  the  school 
room  I  added  today  a  fine  cast  of  Silence.  It  will  aid 
me  in  the  work  of  discipline.  ...  I  have  sent  to 
England  for  copies  of  Pilgrim's  Progress  and  Fairy 
Queen,  since  fine  copies  of  neither  could  be  found  in 
Boston.  .  .  .  Except  in  my  own  school,  I  know  of  no 
provision  for  the  culture  of  the  imagination  by  specific 
tuition  anywhere  in  our  country ;  I  seldom  hear  anyone 
speak  of  the  importance  of  cultivating  it.  And  yet,  if 
any  fact  be  settled  by  history,  it  is  that  imagination 
has  been  the  guiding  impulse  of  society. 

If  Alcott  had  lived  to  attend  the  normal  schools 
and  teachers'  institutes  of  the  twentieth  century 
he  would  have  heard  no  lack  of  talk  of  the  "impor 
tance  of  cultivating  the  imagination,"  and  he  might 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION  263 

even  have  found  schools  where  the  child  who  can 
write  a  fairy  story  receives  more  commendation 
than  an  unimaginative  classmate  whose  fancy  does 
not  soar  beyond  the  multiplication  table.  But  in 
Alcott's  day  repression  rather  than  self-expression 
was  the  road  to  learning,  and  few  understood  his 
daring  paradox:  "The  true  teacher  defends  his 
pupils  against  his  own  personal  influence." 

But  in  fitting  up  his  school  so  handsomely  Alcott 
had  broken  not  only  precedents  but  pocketbook. 
After  five  years  the  Temple  School  came  to  an  end, 
chiefly  because  he  had  offended  the  community  by 
admitting  a  colored  girl  to  his  class  and  by  writing 
Conversations  with  Children  on  the  Gospels,  a  So- 
cratic  dialogue  which  strayed  too  widely  from 
the  path  of  orthodoxy  and  conventionality.  A 
distinguished  Harvard  professor  was  quoted 
as  saying  that  "one-third  of  Mr.  Alcott's  book 
was  absurd,  one-third  blasphemous,  and  one- 
third  obscene." 

Discouraged  by  these  repeated  failures,  Alcott 
abandoned  teaching  in  the  formal  sense  of  the  word 
and  devoted  the  rest  of  his  life  to  lecturing,  writing, 
and  conversation.  At  one  time  he  experimented 
with  a  communistic  colony,  "Fruitlands,"  where 
philosophic  discourse  might  be  combined  with 


264    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

outdoor  life  and  a  strict  vegetarian  diet.  Lowell 
well  summed  up  his  friend  Alcott  in  the  lines: 

For  his  highest  conceit  of  a  happiest  state  is 

Where  they'd  live  upon  acorns  and  hear  him  talk 

gratis; 
And  indeed,  I  believe,  no  man  ever  talked  better. 

His  daughter,  Louisa  May  Alcott,  made  use  of 
these  scholastic  and  communistic  experiences  in 
her  Little  Men  and  Transcendental  Wild  Oats. x 

An  equally  radical  but  much  more  influential 
and  practical  teacher  was  Colonel  Parker.  Like 
many  other  educational  reformers,  Francis  Way- 
land  Parker  was  himself  educated  in  a  country  dis 
trict  school  and  began  his  teaching  career  on  the 
lowest  rung  of  the  educational  ladder,  when  a  lad 
of  only  sixteen,  in  the  schools  of  his  native  State 
of  New  Hampshire.  A  few  years  later  he  was  called 
to  be  a  principal  in  Carrolton,  Illinois,  where  the 
schools  were  reputed  to  be  unusually  "tough." 
Here  he  showed  himself  to  be  the  very  man  for  the 
place,  but  his  career  was  interrupted  by  the  out 
break  of  the  Civil  War.  Parker  enlisted  as  a  pri 
vate  and  left  the  army  as  a  brevet  colonel  with  a 
brilliant  war  record. 

1  A.  Branson  Alcott.  His  Life  and  Philosophy,  by  F.  B.  Sanborn 
and  W.  T.  Harris  (1893;. 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION  265 

After  the  war,  Colonel  Parker  returned  to  his  old 
profession  and  taught  in  New  Hampshire  and  in 
Dayton,  Ohio.  In  1872  he  went  to  Germany,  then 
the  fountain-head  of  educational  lore,  and  on  his 
return  he  became  superintendent  of  schools  at 
Quincy,  Massachusetts.  Here  he  found  oppor 
tunities  which  any  school  reformer  might  envy,  for 
the  local  school  board,  under  the  leadership  of 
Charles  Francis  Adams,  one  of  the  most  distin 
guished  and  influential  of  New  England  statesmen, 
gave  Parker  unlimited  power  and  unhesitating 
support.  He  dropped  the  speller,  the  reader,  the 
grammar,  and  the  copy-book  from  the  schools,  and 
had  the  use  of  the  English  language  taught  by 
means  of  ordinary  books  and  papers.  Natural 
history,  with  classes  both  indoors  and  out,  he  made 
a  leading  part  of  the  school  work  even  in  the  lowest 
grades.  But  Parker's  most  striking  innovation  was 
the  encouragement  which  he  gave  to  the  teachers 
of  Quincy  to  make  experiments  on  their  own  ac 
count.  Too  frequently  the  reforming  superintend 
ent  is  a  martinet  who  uses  his  authority  to  force 
others  to  carry  out  his  plans  blindly  and  who  re 
sents  any  self-assertion  from  the  teacher  as  dis 
loyalty.  Superintendent  Parker,  however,  was  a 
welcome  visitor  to  teacher  and  pupil  alike  when 


266    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

he  entered  a  classroom,  crayon  in  hand,  to  give 
a  demonstration  lesson.  He  sometimes  told  a 
teacher  who  had  ventured  on  school  reforms  that 
awoke  resentment  among  the  conservative:  "If 
they  get  after  you,  they  must  take  me  first." 

It  was  not  long  before  Quincy  became  the  most 
interesting  town  in  the  country  to  students  of  edu 
cation,  and  for  a  time  some  six  thousand  visitors 
came  every  year  to  Quincy  to  study  the  schools 
and  the  methods  of  teaching.  Popularity  at  last 
became  too  much  of  an  interruption  to  the  regular 
work,  the  teachers  and  pupils  felt  that  they  were 
on  exhibition  all  day  long,  and  the  school  board 
was  obliged  to  limit  the  number  of  visitors.  After 
five  years  in  Quincy,  Colonel  Parker  went  to  Bos 
ton  and  then  to  Chicago,  where  he  was  principal 
of  the  Cook  County  Normal  School.  Parker  once 
again  found  himself  the  storm-center  of  a  great 
controversy.  He  insisted  upon  excluding  from  en 
trance  to  the  normal  school  persons  without  a  good 
high  school  education  and  this  step,  though  in  line 
with  the  demand  of  the  times  for  a  higher  standard 
in  the  teaching  profession,  was  widely  resented. 

There  were  many,  also,  who  were  suspicious  of 
the  attempts  to  teach  without  the  text-book  in  the 
lower  grades.  It  was  not  forgotten  that  a  principal 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION  267 

had  once  asked  Colonel  Parker:  "Do  you  mean 
to  say  that,  if  the  school  board  made  the  children 
buy  spelling  books  and  take  them  to  school,  you 
wouldn't  use  them?"  "Oh,  yes,"  said  the  genial 
Colonel,  "I'd  use  them;  of  course  I  would;  I'd  put 
'em  into  the  stove  and  heat  the  house  with  them.'* 

After  some  years  of  agitation  and  debate  the 
city  of  Chicago  took  over  the  Cook  County  Nor 
mal  School,  and  soon  thereafter  Colonel  Parker 
became  head  of  the  Chicago  Institute,  which  later 
became  part  of  the  University  of  Chicago.  The 
School  of  Education  of  that  University  soon  be 
came  famous  through  the  work  of  John  Dewey, 
who  has  perhaps  done  more  to  spread  the  ideals  of 
the  new  education  among  the  teachers  of  America 
than  any  other  living  educator.  Dewey  brought 
to  the  task  what  most  of  the  earlier  reformers 
had  lacked,  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  science 
of  psychology  upon  which  educational  theory  and 
practice  must  be  based  and  a  full  realization  of  the 
social  importance  of  education. x 

The  value  of  the  changes  made  in  recent  years 
in  the  subjects  and  methods  of  teaching  in  Ameri 
can  schools  must  await  the  verdict  of  the  final 

1  For  a  sketch  of  the  life  and  educational  ideals  of  John  Dewey 
see  the  author's  Six  Major  Prophets  (1917). 


268    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

court  of  public  opinion,  and  this  opinion  must  be 
based  upon  experience.  Some  of  the  critics  of 
modern  education  have  expressed  the  fear  that,  by 
overloading  the  curriculum  and  laying  less  empha 
sis  on  memory  drill,  the  teachers  of  today  permit 
their  pupils  to  enter  business  life  or  college  with 
very  shaky  ideas  as  to  the  multiplication  table  and 
incapable  of  writing  a  correctly  spelled  letter  with 
out  the  aid  of  a  dictionary.  The  charge  of  dete 
rioration  is  plausible,  but  the  evidence  to  prove  it  is 
Jacking.  Indeed,  an  interesting  experiment  carried 
out  a  few  years  ago  at  Springfield,  Massachusetts, 
seems  to  indicate  the  contrary.  A  set  of  old  ex 
amination  papers,  grades  and  all,  was  unearthed 
and  used  for  the  examination  of  a  large  class  of 
school  children.  The  marks  given  on  the  test  to 
the  twentieth  century  children  in  such  "fundamen 
tal"  studies  as  spelling,  arithmetic,  and  geography 
showed  a  great  improvement  over  the  grades  made 
by  their  forefathers. 

Another  charge  brought  against  the  school  of 
today  is  that  it  is  wholly  "feminized,"  owing  to 
coeducation  and  the  almost  universal  employment 
of  women  teachers  in  the  elementary  grades.  In 
the  four  decades  from  1870  to  1910  the  number  of 
male  teachers  in  the  common  schools  increased  by 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION  269 

41  per  cent  and  the  number  of  female  teachers  by 
190  per  cent.  This  change  has  been  due  in  part  to 
the  disappearance  of  the  prejudices  which  kept 
women  from  professional  life  and  in  part  to  the 
failure  of  the  school  authorities  to  raise  salaries 
rapidly  enough  to  attract  competent  men  to  teach 
in  the  primary  and  elementary  grades.  One  mem 
ber  of  the  British  Mosely  Commission,  which 
visited  the  United  States  to  study  the  schools, 
declared  that  the  low  average  of  attainment  in  our 
high  schools  could  be  traced  to  "the  preponder 
ance  of  women  teachers,"  and  that  to  the  same 
cause  might  be  attributed  the  deplorable  fact  that 
"the  boy  in  America  is  not  being  brought  up  to 
punch  another  boy's  head  or  to  stand  having  his 
own  punched  in  a  healthy  and  proper  manner." 
Without  questioning  this  British  standard  of  man 
liness,  one  may  nevertheless  note  that,  during  this 
period  of  "feminization,"  athletics  have  had  a 
phenomenal  growth  and  that  the  world's  cham 
pionship  in  most  of  the  sports  has  passed  into 
American  hands. 

More  serious  than  the  complaints  of  a  too  elabo 
rate  course  of  study  and  of  too  much  femininity 
in  the  school  is  the  charge  that  the  modern  school 
permits  the  machinery  of  a  "system"  to  eclipse 


£70    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

the  common  sense  of  the  classroom.  Thus  the 
plan  so  well  worked  out  by  William  A.  Wirt  in 
Gary,  Indiana,  for  a  school  day  which  combined 
study,  play,  and  work,  can  be  made  a  mere  device 
for  keeping  every  part  of  the  school  building  in  use 
and  so  avoiding  the  expense  of  new  construction. 
The  idea  of  education  for  citizenship  by  an  active 
study  of  the  industries  upon  which  our  civilization 
depends  for  its  existence,  rightly  advocated  by 
such  educational  leaders  as  Charles  W.  Eliot  and 
John  Dewey,  may  easily  in  mechanical  hands  de 
generate  into  children's  polytechnics.  We  all  know 
how  much  educational  malpractice  can  go  on 
behind  such  impressive  names  as  Froebel  and  Mon- 
tessori!  But  all  this  simply  emphasizes  the  fact, 
as  true  of  the  old  education  as  of  the  new,  that  edu 
cation  is  at  bottom  simply  an  affair  of  the  interest 
ing  teacher  and  the  interested  pupil,  and  that  the 
libraries,  laboratories,  costly  equipment,  text-books, 
school  laws,  and  school  methods  are  but  so  many 
opportunities  for  the  two  to  get  together.  On  the 
whole,  it  is  beyond  question  that  teacher  and  pu 
pil  now  understand  each  other  more  quickly  and  can 
benefit  each  other  more  completely  because  of  the 
good  work  done  by  such  men  as  Sheldon,  Alcott, 
Parker,  Dewey,  and  their  fellow  reformers. 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION  271 

The  United  States  has  been  throughout  its  his 
tory  an  educational  experiment  station  on  a  con 
tinental  scale.  The  diversity  of  local  control,  the 
parallel  systems  of  public  and  private  institutions 
from  kindergarten  to  university,  and  the  freedom 
of  the  frontier  communities  from  tradition  have 
given  opportunity  for  that  variation  which  is  es 
sential  to  all  evolution.  Visiting  educators  from 
countries  such  as  France  and  Germany,  where  the 
schools  are  strictly  regulated  and  centrally  con 
trolled,  are  amazed  and  amused  to  find  some 
schools  far  in  advance  of  their  own  in  equipment 
and  ideals,  while  others  are  using  crude  and  primi 
tive  methods  elsewhere  abandoned.  But  this 
differentiation  has  made  it  possible  to  compare  the 
working  of  various  plans  in  a  way  that  would  be 
impossible  in  a  country  where  greater  uniformity 
is  enforced.  Education,  since  it  consists  largely  in 
transmitting  to  the  rising  generation  the  accumu 
lated  wisdom  of  the  past,  is  essentially  a  process 
of  conservation,  and  therefore  educators  have  a 
natural  tendency  to  become  conservative.  But 
American  educators  have  been  comparatively  free 
from  this  tendency  and  have,  indeed,  sometimes 
erred  on  the  other  side.  They  are  quick  to  adopt 
—  at  least  in  name  —  new  methods  from  overseas 


AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

and  to  borrow  bright  ideas  from  one  another.  If  a 
school  superintendent  introduces  some  educational 
novelty,  though  it  may  not  be  altogether  original 
or  very  revolutionary,  the  fame  of  it  speedily 
spreads  through  the  land,  and  other  cities  take  it 
up  in  their  eagerness  to  be  in  the  van  of  progress, 
The  voluminous  educational  literature,  the  fre 
quent  teachers'  meetings,  the  county  institutes^ 
and  the  educational  associations  afford  oppor 
tunity  for  this  rapid  contagion  of  ideas.  Such  a 
readiness  to  change  plans  sometimes  leads  to  con 
fusion  and  loss  of  energy.  A  child  who  has  to  alter 
the  style  of  his  handwriting  two  or  three  times  is 
not  likely  to  leave  school  a  good  penman.  It  has 
been  found  necessary  to  check  by  legislation  the 
disposition  to  change  text-books  every  year  on  the 
theory  that  the  latest  must  be  the  best.  But  al 
though  mutability  may  be  a  defect  of  the  American 
temperament,  it  is  also  one  of  the  main  factors 
in  the  national  progress.  If  education  is  to  keep 
pace  with  material  advance,  the  teacher  must  be 
as  ready  as  the  manufacturer  to  scrap  a  piece  of 
antiquated  machinery. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE   UNIVERSITY   OF    TODAY 

Popular  education  is  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  those 
conditions  of  freedom,  political  and  social,  which  are  indispen 
sable  to  free  individual  development.  —  Woodrow  Wilson. 

THE  development  of  educational  institutions  in 
America  has  come  in  part  through  the  normal 
growth  and  multiplication  of  earlier  foundations. 
In  some  instances  a  transformation  so  complete 
has  been  effected  as  to  make  the  old  institution 
unrecognizable  in  the  new.  This  is  especially  the 
case  with  the  university.  There  were  "universi 
ties"  from  the  beginning  of  American  nationality, 
yet  the  word  in  its  European  and  modern  sense 
could  hardly  be  applied  to  any  American  institu 
tion  until  ten  years  after  the  Civil  War,  when 
graduate  and  professional  work  of  a  high  order 
began  to  be  undertaken.  The  German  degree  of 
Doctor  of  Philosophy  was  granted  for  the  first  time 
in  America  at  Yale  in  1861.  Harvard  adopted  this 

18  273 


274    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

degree  in  1872  and  Columbia  in  1884.  The  Ameri 
can  colleges  formerly  followed  the  custom  of  the 
English  in  granting  the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts 
"in  course"  to  almost  anybody  who  was  willing  to 
pay  for  it  three  years  after  graduation.  But  in 
1874  Yale  established  the  requirement  of  at  least 
one  year  of  graduate  study,  and  this  has  since  be 
come  the  general  rule.  The  degree  of  Doctor  of 
Philosophy  now  stands  for  several  years  of  gradu 
ate  work  including  original  research.  In  1916 
American  universities  granted  this  degree  to  607 
persons;  and  more  than  half  of  these  degrees  were 
conferred  in  the  sciences  —  that  is,  in  subjects 
which  were  not  fully  received  into  the  curriculum 
until  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

The  Centennial  Year,  1876,  which  celebrated 
the  breaking  of  the  political  bonds  with  England, 
may  well  serve  as  the  date  when  the  American 
colleges  definitely  threw  off  their  subservience  to 
the  English  collegiate  tradition.  This  turning 
point  is  marked  by  the  establishment  of  Johns 
Hopkins  University,  which  was  chiefly  devoted, 
after  the  model  of  the  German  university,  to  gradu 
ate  study  and  research  and  which  admits  the  newer 
physical  and  political  sciences  to  equal  rank  with 
the  older  linguistic  subjects.  The  leading  Eastern 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  TODAY          275 

colleges  set  about  developing  their  graduate  de 
partments,  and  one  by  one  they  began  to  call  them 
selves  "universities,"  while  the  State  Universities 
of  the  West  strove  to  live  up  to  their  names.  By 
far  the  greater  part  of  the  graduate  work  of  the 
country  is  done  in  the  endowed  universities  such 
as  Columbia,  Chicago,  Harvard,  Yale,  Johns  Hop 
kins,  Cornell,  Pennsylvania,  and  Clark,  though 
some  of  the  State  Universities  such  as  Wisconsin, 
Illinois,  California,  and  Michigan  are  sharing 
largely  in  this  training. 

The  era  of  splendid  generosity  that  set  in  during 
the  later  eighties  transformed  the  older  institutions 
and  added  such  new  ones  as  Clark  University  of 
Worcester,  Massachusetts,  founded  by  Jonas  G. 
Clark;  the  University  of  Chicago,  founded  by  John 
D.  Rockefeller;  and  Leland  Stanford,  Junior,  Uni 
versity,  founded  by  Senator  Leland  Stanford  of 
California.  These  three  universities,  opened  be 
tween  1889  and  1892,  were  so  well  endowed  by 
their  founders  that  from  the  start  they  took  equal 
rank  with  institutions  a  century  or  more  older. 

As  patrons  of  the  universities  usually  preferred 
to  have  their  donations  take  the  tangible  form  of 
buildings,  there  soon  arose  new  classrooms,  labora 
tories,  chapels,  libraries,  and  dormitories  that  quite 


276    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

outshone  the  more  primitive  and  utilitarian  struc 
tures  of  earlier  days.  Formerly  buildings  had  been 
put  up  one  by  one  at  long  intervals  as  the  needs  of 
the  institution  demanded  and  its  funds  permitted. 
The  campus  of  an  old  college  thus  became  a  sort  of 
architectural  museum  with  specimens  of  the  chang 
ing  fashions  of  a  century.  But  when  gifts  of 
millions  came  in  at  one  time  it  was  possible  to  plan 
harmonious  groups.  The  University  of  Chicago 
adopted  for  all  its  buildings  the  English  collegiate 
Gothic  in  gray  limestone  and  Stanford  University 
an  Hispanic  Romanesque  style  in  red  and  yellow 
with  mosaic  inlays.  Harvard  erected  a  unified 
group  of  five  marble  buildings  for  its  medical 
school,  and  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Tech 
nology  in  1916  moved  to  a  new  site  on  the  Cam 
bridge  bank  of  the  Charles  River,  where  a  group 
of  buildings  in  classic  style  has  been  erected. 

The  imitation  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  models 
as  shown  in  the  new  buildings  of  Princeton,  Chi 
cago,  Pennsylvania,  and  elsewhere  is  indicative  of 
a  tendency  to  turn  again  to  England  for  educa 
tional  ideals.  Residential  halls  and  common  rooms 
were  established  in  many  places  in  order  to  get 
something  of  the  English  college  atmosphere,  and 
Princeton  introduced  a  preceptorial  system  of  per- 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  TODAY          277 

sonal  instruction  in  small  groups  suggested  by  the 
tutorial  system  of  the  older  British  universities. 

With  increasing  wealth  and  luxury  on  the  part 
of  the  universities  came  a  desire  for  ceremonial 
display.  Commencement  ceremonies  which  had 
dropped  into  desuetude  were  revived  and  elabo 
rated.  Academic  costumes  of  the  medieval  style 
were  introduced  or  invented.  The  fashion  spread 
like  wildfire  from  East  to  West,  and  in  a  few 
years  mortar-board  caps  and  gorgeous  gowns 
were  to  be  seen  on  almost  every  campus  in 
the  country. 

Coincident  and  connected  with  the  rise  of  cere 
monial  was  the  development  of  athletics.  In  the 
early  days  colleges  were  disposed  to  frown  upon 
student  sports  and  in  some  cases,  as  at  Princeton, 
tried  to  prohibit  them;  but  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
nineteenth  century  public  games  became  recog 
nized  by  the  college  authorities  as  the  most  effec 
tive  form  of  advertising  and  by  the  students  as  the 
quickest  road  to  fame.  A  gymnasium  came  to  be 
considered  as  necessary  as  a  library,  and  more 
money  was  spent  on  a  single  football  game  or  boat 
race  than  would  formerly  have  sufficed  to  run  the 
college  for  a  year.  In  the  modern  American  uni 
versity  the  stadium  has  assumed  an  importance 


278    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

and  popularity  such  as  it  has  not  enjoyed  since  the 
fall  of  Rome  and  Byzantium. 

The  dominant  power  in  undergraduate  social  life 
of  today  is  the  fraternity,  a  unique  feature  of  the 
American  college,  though  it  corresponds  in  a  way 
to  the  corps  of  the  German  universities.  We  have 
already  noted  the  founding,  at  old  William  and 
Mary  in  the  Year  of  Independence,  of  the  first 
Greek-letter  society,  Phi  Beta  Kappa,  as  a  philo 
sophical  and  patriotic  organization.  In  conse 
quence  of  the  anti-masonic  agitation  of  1826  Phi 
Beta  Kappa  abandoned  its  ritualism  and  secrecy 
and  is  now  simply  an  honorary  fraternity  admitting 
about  a  tenth  of  the  seniors,  men  and  women  alike, 
on  the  ground  of  scholarship.  But  in  1826-27, 
even  when  the  popular  opposition  to  secret  societies 
was  most  fierce,  three  fraternities  —  Kappa  Alpha, 
Sigma  Phi,  and  Delta  Phi  —  were  founded  at 
Union  College,  and  from  this  center  the  movement 
spread  rapidly  though  secretly  to  the  New  York 
and  New  England  colleges.  Since  then  the  fra 
ternities  have  continued  to  thrive  and  multiply, 
although  at  times  college  authorities,  State  Legis 
latures,  and  "barbarian"  students  have  tried  to 
suppress  them.  At  the  present  time  there  are  over 
two  hundred  fraternities  and  sororities,  some 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  TODAY          279 

academic  and  some  professional,  some  local  and  some 
national,  certain  of  which  have  as  many  as  seventy- 
five  local  chapters.  These  societies  which  were 
once  outlaws  now  receive  practically  official  status 
in  the  college  organization  and,  instead  of  meeting 
in  woods  and  cellars,  are  allowed  to  have  their  hand 
some  chapter-houses  on  the  campus.  A  few  insti 
tutions  like  Princeton  retain  the  old  prohibition, 
but  at  Princeton  upper-class  dining  clubs  have 
grown  up  which  have  a  strong  resemblance  to  the 
Greek-letter  fraternities.  During  the  last  quarter 
of  a  century  the  membership  of  the  national  fra 
ternities  has  risen  from  72,000  to  about  270,000,  of 
whom  30,000  are  women.  They  own  or  rent  1100 
chapter-houses  valued  at  $8,000,000. 

The  chief  characteristics  of  the  recent  period  of 
American  education  are  expansion  and  diversifica 
tion.  Higher  education  has  burst  through  the  four 
walls  and  four  years  that  formerly  confined  it  and 
has  overflowed  the  land.  The  number  of  students 
studying  the  classics  increases  year  by  year,  but 
the  number  studying  new  subjects  increases  much 
more  rapidly.  The  older  colleges  in  the  country 
are  thriving  and  doing  better  work  than  ever,  but 
the  city  institutions  have  expanded  more  rapidly. 

The  rigid  requirements  for  entrance  to  college 


280    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

and  the  prescribed  course  afterwards  were  broken 
down,  and  the  elective  system  provided  a  place  for 
new  studies.  The  efforts  of  Jefferson  to  introduce 
election  into  Virginia  and  of  George  Ticknor  to  do 
the  same  for  Harvard  had  been,  as  we  have  seen, 
unsuccessful;  but,  when  Charles  William  Eliot, 
a  chemist  with  radical  ideas  in  education,  became 
President  of  Harvard  in  1869,  he  was  able  in  the 
course  of  the  next  twenty-five  years  to  provide 
for  a  completely  elective  system.  The  example  of 
Harvard  was  followed  somewhat  hesitatingly  by 
almost  all  the  others. 

Another  university  president  of  similar  initiative, 
William  Rainey  Harper,  had  the  opportunity  in 
the  University  of  Chicago  of  creating  a  new  institu 
tion  instead  of  reforming  an  old  one  and  was  thus 
able  to  introduce  many  innovations  that  have  been 
generally  adopted.  One  of  these,  the  continuation 
of  college  work  throughout  the  summer,  enables 
the  ambitious  student  to  complete  a  four  years* 
course  in  three  and  gives  teachers  from  other  in 
stitutions  an  opportunity  to  carry  on  graduate 
work.  The  university  of  Chicago  imported  the 
idea  of  extension  courses  from  Oxford  and  also  es 
tablished  correspondence  courses.  Other  agencies 
for  making  education  accessible  to  the  largest 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  TODAY          281 

possible  number  of  students  Harper  derived  from 
the  Chautauqua  Institution,  in  which  he  had  long 
been  active.  The  Chautauqua  movement  started 
in  a  camp-meeting  of  Sunday  School  teachers  at 
Chautauqua  Lake,  New  York,  in  1874.  Similar 
assemblies  were  established  in  other  States  and  not 
only  served  to  stimulate  interest  in  systematic 
reading  but  afforded  a  platform  for  the  free  dis 
cussion  of  public  questions  that  has  had  as  great  an 
influence  over  politics  as  the  earlier  lyceum  move 
ment.  From  the  platform  of  the  Chautauqua  as 
semblies  held  every  year  it  is  possible  to  speak  to 
five  million  people. 

It  is  usual  now  for  the  city  universities  to  give 
public  lecture  courses,  provide  evening  classes, 
and  otherwise  extend  their  privileges  to  those  not 
enrolled  as  regular  students.  Through  the  initia 
tive  of  the  late  Dr.  Henry  M.  Leipziger,  the  City  of 
New  York  has  established  a  system  in  the  school 
buildings  of  free  evening  lectures  which  are  at 
tended  by  a  million  adult  auditors  a  year. 

Besides  stimulating  and  satisfying  the  educa 
tional  demands  of  the  American  people,  the  uni 
versities  have  extended  their  influence  to  foreigners, 
both  by  drawing  them  to  this  country  and  by  es 
tablishing  schools  in  other  lands.  As  the  home 


282    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

missionary  movement  started  most  of  the  colleges 
west  of  the  Alleghanies,  so  the  foreign  missionaries 
carried  the  American  college  around  the  world. 
In  China  there  are  eighteen  colleges  and  univer 
sities  established  by  American  missionaries.  In 
Turkey  the  American  schools  accommodate  five 
thousand  collegiate  students.  Such  institutions  as 
Robert  College  and  the  American  College  for  Girls 
at  Constantinople  and  the  Syrian  Protestant  Col 
lege  at  Beirut  have  trained  the  leaders  of  the 
new  nationalities  emerging  from  the  chaos  of  the 
Great  War. 

The  sudden  extension  of  American  sovereignty 
in  1898  over  eight  million  Filipinos,  mostly  illiter 
ate,  brought  a  new  demand  upon  the  American 
school  system  to  which  it  has  nobly  responded. 
The  Government  undertook  the  unprecedented 
task  of  teaching  the  whole  of  the  rising  generation 
a  new  language.  Before  the  cannon  were  cool, 
schools  had  been  opened  with  soldier  teachers. 
The  first  Philippine  Commission  called  for  a  thou 
sand  schoolmasters  to  be  sent  from  America,  and 
these  volunteer  teachers  followed  closely  behind 
the  volunteer  army  as  it  progressed  in  the  pacifica 
tion  of  the  archipelago.  More  than  $3,000,000  a 
year  is  now  spent  on  education  in  the  Philippines. 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  TODAY          283 

This  is  seven  times  as  much  in  proportion  to  the 
population  as  the  Dutch  spend  in  Java  and  six 
times  as  much  as  the  British  spend  in  India  for 
that  purpose. 

When  Japan  was  opened  to  the  world  by  Com 
modore  Perry  in  1854,  American  missionaries  and 
teachers  took  ah  active  part  in  the  work  of  regen 
eration  during  the  Era  of  Meiji  or  Enlightenment. 
The  mission  schools  soon  began  to  send  back  stu 
dents  who  often  beat  the  American  boys  in  their  own 
field.  The  Japanese  were  later  followed  by  Chinese 
in  still  larger  numbers,  owing  in  part  to  the  remis 
sion  of  $12,700,000  of  the  Boxer  indemnity  on  the 
understanding  that  the  Chinese  Government  would 
employ  it  in  sending  Chinese  students  to  America. 
There  are  now  about  2000  Chinese  in  American 
preparatory  schools  and  colleges  taking  chiefly 
engineering  and  the  industrial  sciences. 

More  recently  students  from  India  began  to 
come  in  large  numbers.  They  are  not  usually,  like 
the  Japanese  and  Chinese,  sent  with  the  aid  or  en 
couragement  of  the  Government  but  on  the  con 
trary  are  largely  nationalists  opposed  to  the  British 
rule.  Naturally  many  young  people  come  from 
Hawaii,  the  Philippines,  Porto  Rico,  and  Cuba  to 
be  educated  in  the  States,  and  more  than  formerly 


284    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

are  coming  from  South  America,  especially  Brazil. 
Owing  again  to  mission  schools,  Armenian,  Syrian, 
Turk,  Persian,  and  Bulgarian  students  are  here  by 
the  hundreds.  These  divers  nationalities  are  usu 
ally  organized,  together  with  a  limited  number  of 
American  students,  into  Cosmopolitan  Clubs,  and 
this  association  during  the  period  of  life  when 
friendships  are  formed  most  easily  has  done  much 
to  cultivate  what  President  Butler  calls  "the 
international  mind"  in  American  universities. 

The  Great  War  proved  what  had  sometimes  been 
questioned  —  that  the  United  States  was  a  united 
people.  In  spite  of  the  diversity  of  racial  elements 
and  family  connections  with  all  the  belligerent 
nationalities  in  Europe,  the  youth  of  this  country 
responded  with  little  hesitation  to  the  call  to  arms. 
Few  European  countries  showed  such  unanimity  of 
opinion  in  this  crisis.  The  process  of  Americaniza 
tion  had  been  more  complete  than  even  the  optimis 
tic  had  hoped;  and  the  chief  credit  for  this  belongs 
to  the  public  school  system. 

Americans  had  a  double  duty  laid  upon  them. 
They  had  to  educate  not  only  their  own  children 
but  also  the  immigrants.  Though  the  latter  might 
not  be  illiterate,  they  had  usually  to  be  taught  the 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  TODAY          285 

English  language  and  American  ideals.  No  people 
ever  had  such  a  task  as  this  before  —  to  assimilate 
a  million  foreigners  a  year  —  and  it  is  perhaps  the 
finest  thing  which  could  be  said  of  the  American 
school  that  it  has  with  almost  incredible  complete 
ness  accomplished  this  gigantic  feat  of  naturaliza 
tion  through  education. 

The  pay-roll  of  an  American  coal  mine  or  steel 
works  today  reads  like  an  ethnological  map  of  the 
Balkans,  yet  the  children  of  the  workmen  are  thor 
oughly  Americanized.  Feuds  two  thousand  years 
old,  based  on  racial,  religious,  and  linguistic  differ 
ences,  are  here  wiped  out  in  a  single  generation. 
The  tourist  traveling  a  thousand  miles  across  the 
United  States  will  observe  less  contrast  in  costume 
and  custom,  in  dialect  and  mode  of  thought,  than 
he  would  while  traveling  a  hundred  miles  in  many 
parts  of  Europe.  Yet  the  American  school  is  not  a 
leveling  machine.  Its  aim  is  not  the  suppression 
but  rather  the  cultivation  of  natural  diversity. 
The  "melting-pot"  metaphor  does  not  mean  that 
sometime  there  is  to  be  poured  out  a  homogeneous 
alloy  to  solidify  like  the  nations  of  the  Old  World. 
The  melting-pot  is  to  be  kept  melting.  The  Ameri 
can  idea  is  to  maintain  the  mass  constantly  fluid 
so  that  individual  particles  may  rise  and  fall  accord- 


286    AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION 

ing  to  their  specific  gravity.  Americanization 
means  the  obliteration  of  the  nationalistic,  tradi 
tional,  and  class  distinctions  of  Europe  in  order 
that  the  real  and  personal  distinctions  may  develop. 
Equality,  in  the  American  sense  of  the  word,  is  not 
an  end  but  a  beginning.  It  means  that,  so  far  as 
the  State  can  do  it,  all  children  shall  start  in  the 
race  of  life  on  an  even  line.  The  chief  agency  for 
this  purpose  is  the  public  school  system;  and  this 
aim  has  already  been  so  far  accomplished  that  in  a 
large  part  of  the  country  a  youth  of  sufficient  abil 
ity  to  profit  by  the  opportunity  can  get  any  educa 
tion  he  needs,  up  to  the  highest  professional  train 
ing,  without  spending  any  money  other  than  what 
he  can  make  by  his  own  exertions  during  his  course 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

THE  most  useful  single  work  of  reference  on  education 
in  America  is  the  Cyclopedia  of  Education  (1911-13), 
5  vols.,  edited  by  Paul  Monroe,  Professor  of  the  His 
tory  of  Education  in  Columbia  University.  The  ar 
ticles  by  more  than  a  thousand  individual  contribu 
tors  give  a  list  of  the  best  books  on  each  topic  which 
may  be  used  as  a  guide  to  further  reading.  The  annual 
Report  of  the  United  States  Commissioner  of  Education 
(usually  obtainable  from  Washington  for  the  asking) 
is  now  issued  in  two  volumes :  the  first  contains  reports 
of  all  important  movements  in  education  here  and 
abroad,  with  accounts  or  abstracts  of  conventions, 
surveys,  legislation,  books,  and  similar  matter;  the 
second  volume  contains  the  statistics  of  schools  of  all 
grades.  These  volumes  really  form  an  annual  ency 
clopedia  and  current  history  of  education.  Besides 
this  work,  the  Bureau  of  Education  publishes  various 
historical  monographs  in  the  form  of  circulars  and 
bulletins  and  a  monthly  bibliography  of  educational 
literature. 

The  series  of  twenty  brief  monographs  on  Education 
in  the  United  States  (1900),  2  vols.,  prepared  under  the 
editorship  of  Nicholas  Murray  Butler,  President  of 
Columbia  University,  for  the  Paris  Exposition  of  1900, 
gives  a  survey  of  the  field  at  that  date  with  some 

287 


288  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

historical  background.  Those  who  wish  to  explore  more 
thoroughly  the  byways  of  educational  history  will  find 
of  interest  the  special  studies  in  the  volumes  of  Henry 
Barnard's  American  Journal  of  Education  (1855-1882), 
32  vols.  Richard  G.  Boone's  Education  in  the  United 
States  (1889)  and  Edwin  G.  Dexter's  History  of  Educa 
tion  in  the  United  States  (1904)  are  detailed  chronicles 
in  the  general  field  of  American  education.  But  for 
later  and  more  adequate  studies  the  reader  should 
consult  the  monographs  in  the  Columbia  University 
Contributions  to  Philosophy,  Psychology,  and  Educa 
tion;  and  Columbia  University,  Teachers  College, 
Contributions  to  Education.  A  valuable  special  study 
on  land  grants  and  other  public  endowments  is  Frank 
Blackmar's  History  of  Federal  and  State  Aid  to  Higher 
Education  (1890). 

Three  useful  works  by  Frank  Pierrepont  Graves  of 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania  —  The  History  of  Edu 
cation  in  Modern  Times  (1913),  A  Student's  History  of 
Education  (1915),  and  Great  Educators  of  Three  Cen 
turies  (1912) — relate  American  education  with  the 
educational  history  of  Europe.  In  this  connection 
should  also  be  mentioned  Will  S.  Monroe's  important 
History  of  the  Pestalozzian  Movement  in  the  United 
States  (1907).  The  History  of  Higher  Education  in 
America  (1906),  by  Charles  F.  Thwing  of  Western 
Reserve  University,  is  a  good  narrative  of  college  and 
university  development  made  especially  interesting 
by  quotations  from  contemporaries  and  by  accounts 
of  college  life.  For  those  interested  in  the  relation 
of  American  education  to  the  strife  of  political  par 
ties  and  social  classes  no  better  book  could  be  re 
commended  than  Frank  Tracy  Carlton's  Economic 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE  289 

Influences  upon  Educational  Progress  in  the  United 
States,  1820-1850  (1908). 

For  contemporaneous  records  and  pictures  of  school 
life  the  reader  can  find  what  he  wants  in  such  books  as 
W.  H.  Small's  Early  New  England  Schools  (1914), 
Clifton  Johnson's  Old  Time  Schools  and  School  Books 
(1904),  and  Emily  N.  VanderpoeFs  Chronicles  of  a 
Pioneer  School  (1903). 

A.  E.  Winship's  Great  American  Educators  (1900), 
a  volume  of  brief  biographies  for  school  reading,  will 
be  found  by  adults  quite  as  profitable  as  less  interest 
ing  books.  Those  who  care  to  study  more  closely  the 
lives  of  leading  educators  will  find  available  abundant 
material  impossible  to  list  in  this  place.  Few  educators 
of  note  have  gone  without  their  Boswell,  and  some, 
such  as  Horace  Mann,  have  become  the  theme  of  a 
veritable  library.  There  are  also  special  histories  for 
every  important  college  and  university.  Great  Ameri 
can  Universities  (1909),  by  Edwin  E.  Slosson,  gives 
journalistic  impressions  of  fourteen  leading  American 
institutions. 

On  Catholic  education  the  reader  should  consult 
The  Catholic  Encyclopedia  (1907-12),  15  vols.;  the 
works  of  the  Reverend  James  A.  Burns,  The  Catholic 
School  System  in  the  United  States  (1908),  Catholic 
Education  (1917),  and  Growth  and  Development  of  the 
Catholic  School  System  in  the  United  States  (1912);  and 
also  the  History  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  the  United 
States  by  J.  G.  Shea  (1886-92),  4  vols.  The  fascinating 
story  of  the  Kentucky  pioneer  priests  may  be  found  in 
Sketches  of  the  Early  Catholic  Missions  in  Kentucky 
(1844)  by  M.  J.  Spalding  and  in  the  lives  of  Nerinckx 
by  Hewlett  and  Maes. 


290  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

For  a  more  detailed  account  of  the  Catholic  teach 
ing  communities,  founded  and  organized  by  remark 
able  women,  the  reader  should  consult:  M.  A.  McCann, 
The  History  of  Mother  Seton's  Daughters  (1917);  Mary 
Aloysia  Hardey,  Religious  of  the  Sacred  Heart  (1910); 
Anna  B.  McGill,  The  Sisters  of  Charity  of  Nazareth, 
Kentucky  (1917);  George  Parsons  Lathrop,  A  Story  of 
Courage  (1894);  M.  J.  Brunowe,  The  College  of  Mt.  St. 
Vincent  (1917). 

In  the  footnotes  to  the  body  of  this  volume  the  atten  - 
tive  reader  will  have  found  several  references  to  other 
books  dealing  with  various  special  topics.  In  addition 
to  the  biographies  of  educators  and  chronicles  of 
schools  and  colleges,  there  are  monographs  on  educa 
tional  history  for  most  parts  of  the  Union  and  even  on 
the  school  systems  of  important  towns  and  cities.  Will 
S.  Monroe's  Bibliography  of  Education  (1897)  will  help 
the  conscientious  student  to  find  his  way  through  the 
forest  of  earlier  educational  literature,  and  the  current 
files  of  educational  periodicals  will  enable  him  to  keep 
abreast  with  the  incessant  output  of  new  works  in  the 
same  field. 


INDEX 


Academia  Virginiensis  et  Oxon- 
iensis,  name  for  proposed 
college  in  Virginia  (1624),  82 

Academies,  111-15;  attitude 
toward  high  schools,  115; 
George  Clinton  on,  143 

Adams,  C.  K.,  adopts  German 
seminar  method,  178 

Adams,  H.  B.,  Thomas  Jeffer 
son  and  the  University  of 
Virginia,  cited,  89  (note) 

Adams,  John,  101;  and  French 
educational  ideals,  169;  and 
education  of  women,  239-40 

Adams,  J.  Q.,  and  national 
university,  102;  Mann  suc 
ceeds  in  Congress,  135 

Adams  Act  (1906),  225 

Agassiz,  Louis,  256 

Agricultural  colleges,  first  at 
Lansing  (Mich.),  176;  Jeffer 
son's  plan,  209-10,  211; 
DeWitt's  plan,  212-13; 
Queens  College  becomes 
agricultural,  213;  Maine 
College  of  Agriculture  and 
Mechanic  Arts,  213-14; 
under  Morrill  Act,  226-27; 
see  also  Morrill  Act 

Alabama,  school  legislation, 
238 

Alcott,  A.  B.,  260-64,  270 

Alcott,  Louisa  May,  daughter 
of  A.  B.,  264 

American  Academy  of  Arts  and 
Sciences  founded,  169 


American  Catholic  Quarterly, 
cited,  199  (note) 

American  College  for  Girls, 
Constantinople,  282 

American  Journal  of  Education, 
138-39 

American  Philosophical  So 
ciety,  74 

Americanization  through  pub 
lic  school  system,  284-86 

Amherst  Agricultural  College, 
226-27 

Amish  in  Pennsylvania,  37 

Annapolis,  King  William's 
School,  41;  Naval  Academy 
at,  99 

Antioch  College,  160;  Mann 
president  of,  135,  136;  co 
education,  248 

Apprentice  system,  209 

Argentina,  schools  influenced 
by  Horace  Mann,  137 

Arizona,  Catholic,  182 

Arkansas,  teaching  communi 
ties  of  women  in,  197 

Armenia,  students  from,  284 

Armstrong,  General  S.  C., 
257 

Arnold,  Matthew,  tries  to 
introduce  German  methods 
into  English  schools,  175 

Athletics,  61-62,  269,  277-78 


B 


Badin,  Father  S.  T.,  first  priest 
ordained  in  United  States, 
195 


291 


292 


INDEX 


Bailey,  L.  H.,  on  influence  of 
the  Morrill  Act,  231-32 

Baker  University,  Baldwin 
(Kan.),  admits  women,  248 

Baltimore,  First  Provincial 
Council,  recommendations 
on  religious  education  (1829), 
198;  Third  Plenary  Council 
orders  parochial  schools 
(1884),  198-99 

Bancroft,  George,  sent  to  Got- 
tingen,  173 

Bancroft,  H.  H.,  History  of 
California,  cited,  187  (note) 

Baptist  Church,  in  Pennsyl 
vania,  37;  and  Brown  Uni 
versity,  56;  education  of 
women  in  South,  238 

Barnard,  Henry,  256;  life,  137- 
138;  edits  Connecticut  Com 
mon  School  Journal,  138;  as 
college  president,  138;  first 
United  States  Commissioner 
of  Education,  138;  edits  The 
American  Journal  of  Educa 
tion,  138-39;  Stoweand,  161 

Barnard  College,  251 

Barrett,  Samuel,  teacher  of 
Horace  Mann,  125 

Beaurepaire,  Chevalier  Ques- 
nay  de,  169 

Beecher,  Catherine  Esther,  240 

Beecher,  Lyman,  240 

Bell-Lancaster  system,  145-46, 
148 

Benedictines,  colleges,  204-05 

Berkeley,  Bishop  George, 
benefactor  of  Yale,  55 

Berkeley,  Sir  William,  Gover 
nor  of  Virginia,  81,  83 

Blair,  Rev.  James,  and  found 
ing  of  College  of  William  and 
Mary,  83-84;  president  of 
William  and  Mary,  85 

Blake,  Sophia  Jex,  A  Visit  to 
Some  American  Schools  and 
Colleges,  cited,  62  (note) 

Blandin,  I.  M.  E.,  History  of 
the  Higher  Education  of 


Women  in  the  South,  cited, 
238  (note) 

Blodget,  Samuel,  Economica, 
quoted,  97 

Blodget,  Major  William,  97 

Bohemia  Manor  (Md.),  Jesuit 
school,  191 

Borica,  Governor,  orders  Span 
ish  taught  in  missions,  187 

Boston,  Franklin  bequeaths 
fund  to,  75-76;  English 
Classical  School  for  Boys. 
115;  schools  for  girls,  115, 
236;  Alcott's  Temple  School, 
262,  263 

Boston  Grammar  School, 
Franklin  at,  65 

Boston  Latin  School,  founded 
(1635),  4;  Cheever  as  head 
of,  11 

Bouquillon,  Rev.  Thomas, 
Education:  To  Whom  Does  It 
Belong  ?,  200 

Brazil,  students  from,  284 

British  Mosely  Commission, 
269 

Broadway  Tabernacle,  New 
York  City,  Finney  builds,  248 

Brooks,  W.  K.,  257 

Brown,  President  of  People's 
College,  224 

Brown  University,  Baptists 
found,  56;  tolerance,  56; 
Mann  at,  125;  Wayland's 
report  (1850),  214-15 

Bryn  Mawr  College,  250 

Buchanan,  James,  vetoes  Mor 
rill  Bill,  222,  224 

Buffalo,  Christliche  Welt, 
quoted,  202  (note) 

Bulgaria,  students  from,  284 

Butler,  N.  M.,  284;  Mono 
graphs  on  Education  in  the 
United  States,  cited,  250 
(note) 


Cabell,  J.  C.,  Jefferson  writes 
to,  94-95 


INDEX 


California,  Catholic,  182; 
Franciscans  in,  185,  ISO- 
IS? 

California,  Lower,  missions  in, 
185-86 

California,  University  of,  at 
Berkeley  (Cal.)>  55;  becomes 
coeducational  (1870),  179; 
graduate  work,  275 

Cambridge  University,  Ameri 
can  youth  attracted  to,  44; 
American  university  build 
ings  modeled  after,  276 

Canfield,  J.  H.,  257 

Carnegie,  Andrew,  69,  76 

Carolinas,  school  laws,  42-43; 
see  also  North  Carolina, 
South  Carolina 

Carroll,  Charles,  of  Carrollton, 
191 

Carroll,  John,  Bishop  of  Balti 
more,  182,  191,  193;  at 
Jesuit  college,  191 

Carter,  J.  G.,  127 

Cassilly,  Rev.  Francis,  on 
coeducation,  205 

Catholic  education  in  America, 
181  et  seq.\  bibliography, 
289-90 

Catholic  Educational  Associ 
ation,  Proceedings  (1918), 
cited,  187  (note);  Proceed 
ings  (1917),  cited,  201 
(note) 

Catholic  University  of  America, 
Washington,  204 

Catholics,  in  Pennsylvania, 
36-37;  and  Public  School 
Society,  146-47,  197;  popu 
lation,  182-83;  education 
of  women  in  South,  238; 
colleges  non-coeducational, 
251;  see  also  Catholic  edu 
cation 

Cecil,  Father,  starts  school  in 
New  Orleans  (1722),  188 

"Central  College  of  Virginia," 
Jefferson's  plan,  86-90 

Charleston  (S.  C.),  schools,  42 


Chautauqua  Institution,  281 

Cheever,  Ezekiel,  11-12 

Chicago,  city  takes  over  Cook 
County  Normal,  267 

Chicago  Institute,  267 

Chicago,  University  of,  School 
of  Education,  267;  graduate 
work,  275;  founded  by 
Rockefeller,  275;  archi 
tecture,  276;  Harper  and, 
280 

China,  colleges  established  by 
American  missionaries,  282; 
Boxer  indemnity  students, 
283  m 

Christian  Brothers,  Colleges, 
205 

Christian  Church,  education  of 
women  in  South,  238 

Church  of  England,  position 
with  reference  to  education 
in  colonies,  29;  see  also 
Society  for  the  Propagation 
of  the  Gospel;  in  Pennsyl 
vania,  37;  and  King's 
College,  56;  and  College  of 
William  and  Mary,  86 

Cincinnati,  Catherine  Beecher 
organizes  Female  Seminary 
in,  240 

Claiborne-Ingle  rebellion,  189 

Clark,  J.  G.,  275 

Clark  University,  graduate 
work,  275;  founded,  275 

Clarke,  John,  Essay  upon  the 
Education  of  Youth  in  Gram 
mar  Schools,  121-22 

Classics,  Latin  grammar 
schools  in  New  England,  9- 
12;  in  schools  of  New 
Netherlands,  29;  in  colonial 
colleges,  48-49;  Franklin 
and,  72-73;  attitude  toward 
study  of  Greek,  237;  increase 
in  number  of  students,  279 

Clinton,  DeWitt,  256;  and  the 
free  school,  141  et  seq.\ 
quoted,  141;  first  student  at 
Columbia,  142;  and  Public 


294 


INDEX 


Clinton,  DeWitt— Continued 
School   Society,    144-46;   as 
Governor     of     New     York, 
147-48;    educational    inter 
ests,  147-48 

Clinton,  George,  143 

Coeducation,  in  New  England, 
17-18,  234;  in  State  Univer 
sities,  179-80;  Catholic  view 
of,  205;  in  colleges  (1916), 
251-52;  in  schools,  252;  see 
also  Girls,  Women 

Cogswell,  Dr.  J.  G.,  173 

Colleges,  Dutch  colonists  and, 
23;  Friends  indifferent  to, 
35-36;  American  boys  sent 
to  English,  44;  colonial,  46 
et  seq.;  growth  of  American 
system,  48;  curriculum,  49- 
50,  57-58;  college  life  and 
discipline,  58-64;  Catholic, 
203-04;  in  New  England, 
208;  entrance  requirements, 
49,  279-80;  see  also  names  of 
colleges,  State  Universities, 
Universities 

Colorado,  school  teachers  from 
East,  2 

Columbia  University,  King's 
College  becomes  Columbia 
College,  142;  Regents  and, 
143;  Barnard  College  forms 
part  of,  251;  degrees,  274; 
graduate  work,  275;  see  also 
King's  College 

Commencement  ceremonies, 
62,  277 

Common  School  Journal,  128 

Congregational  Church  in  New 
England,  30 

Connecticut,  school  law  as 
model,  1;  education  in,  8-9, 
19-20,  105;  Barnard's  work 
in,  137-38,  139 

Connecticut  Common  School 
Journal,  138 

Cook  County  Normal  School, 
Parker  principal  of,  266, 
267 


Cooper,  Thomas,  at  Univer 
sity  of  Virginia,  89;  Jeffer 
son's  letter  to,  90 

Cope,  E.  D.,  paleontological 
investigations  in  Trans 
actions  of  American  Philo 
sophical  Society,  74 

Corlett,  Elijah,  12 

Cornell,  Ezra,  and  coeducation, 
179-80 

Cornell  College,  Mount  Ver- 
non  (la.),  248 

Cornell  University,  coedu 
cation,  179-80,  251;  State 
University  in  type,  180; 
obtains  national  funds,  224; 
graduate  work,  275 

Cosmopolitan  Clubs,  284 

Cotton,  Edward,  endows 
Catholic  school  of  Newtown 
(Md.),  (1653),  189-90 

Cousin,  Victor,  report  on  Prus 
sian  school  system,  175 

Crandall,  Prudence,  impris 
oned  for  maintaining  school 
for  negroes,  247 

Cuba,  students  from,  283 

Curtius,  Dr.  Alexander,  25-26 


D 


Dame  schools,  18-19,  233 
David,   Father,  organizes  Sis 
ters  of  Charity  of  Nazareth, 

196 

Degrees,  50,  273-74 
Delaware,  early  schools,  38-39; 

independence     of     districts, 

107 
Delaware   River,    Swedes   and 

Dutch  on,  37 
Dewey,    John,    69,    89,    270; 

quoted,  253;  at  University  of 

Chicago,  267 
DeWitt,     Simeon,     216,     224; 

and   agricultural   education, 

211-13 
Discipline,  in  colonial  schools, 

17;   at   Harvard,   51-52;   in 


INDEX 


295 


Discipline— Continued 

American  colleges,  58-61; 
Jefferson  and,  92;  in  district 
schools,  108-09 

District  school  system,  105- 
111 

Domestic  science,  Catherine 
Beecher  and,  240 

Dominicans,  in  Lower  Cali 
fornia,  186;  and  Catholic 
University  of  America,  204 

Dorchester  (Mass.),  public 
school  established,  4 

Dover  (N.  H.),  petition  from, 
6-7 

Draper,  researches  in  Trans 
actions  of  American  Philo 
sophical  Society,  74 

Dubourg,  Rev.  William,  Sul- 
pician,  192 

Dunkers  in  Pennsylvania,  37 

Dunster,  Henry,  President  of 
Harvard,  52-53 

Durant,  H.  T.,  founds  Welles- 
ley  College,  250 

Dutch  on  the  Delaware,  37, 
39;  see  also  New  Nether- 
land 

Dutch  Reformed  Church,  in 
Pennsylvania,  37;  and 
Queens  College,  56 

Dutch  West  India  Company, 
23,  25 

Dwight,  Edmund,  and  Lexing 
ton  normal  school,  128 


E 


East  Jersey,  school  law,  40; 
see  also  New  Jersey 

Eaton,  Nathaniel,  first  Presi 
dent  of  Harvard,  51-52 

Eaton  Free  School,  80 

Eddis,  William,  quoted,  44-45 

Elective  system,  Jefferson  and, 
91,  174;  Ticknor  and,  91, 
173-74;  spread  of,  91;  in 
secondary  education,  114; 
Eliot  and,  280 


Elementary  schools,  teachers' 
salaries,  12-13;  curriculum, 
13-14,  26;  text-books,  14- 
15;  schoolhouses,  15-16; 
recitations,  16-17;  discipline, 
17;  see  also  District  school 
system,  Public  schools 

Eliot,  C.  W.,  69,  177,  270, 
280 

Eliot,  Rev.  John,  12 

Elizabeth  Academy,  Old 
Washington  (Miss.),  239 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  quoted,  74; 
on  Alcott,  262 

Emery,  Father,  Superior  Gen 
eral  of  the  Sulpicians,  193 

Emma  Willard  Seminary,  Troy 
(N.  Y.),  240 

Engelhardt,  Rev.  Zephyrin, 
Catholic  Educational  Work  in 
Early  California,  cited,  187 
(note) 

Engineering,  in  State  Univer 
sities,  167;  a  new  learned 
profession,  215;  land  survey 
ing,  215-16;  see  also  Techni 
cal  education 

England,  educational  ideals 
from,  276 

Episcopalian  Church,  see 
Church  of  England 

Erie  Canal,  Van  Rensselaer 
proposes,  216 

Everett,  Edward,  at  Got- 
tingen,  173 

Experiment  stations,  226,  230 

Extension  work,  University  of 
Chicago,  280;  Chautauqua 
Institution,  281;  New  York 
City  lectures,  281 


"Faribault  Plan,"  201-02 
Fellenberg,  P.  E.  von,  218 
Fellenberg  movement,  218-19 
"Female  seminaries,"  112-13 
Field,  Eugene,  257 
Field,  Justice  S.  J.,  257 


296 


INDEX 


Finney,  Rev.  C.  G.,  second 
President  of  Oberlin,  247- 
248 

Fithian,  Philip,  account  of 
student  life  at  College  of 
New  Jersey,  60-61 

Fitzpatrick,  E.  A.,  The  Edu 
cational  Views  and  Influence 
of  DeWitt  Clinton,  cited,  148 
(note) 

Flaget,  Father,  Sulpician,  192, 
196 

Flexner,  Abraham,  69 

Florida,  Catholic,  182;  Fran 
ciscan  missions,  183 

Florida,  University  of,  not 
coeducational,  179 

Flower,  Enoch,  35 

Foot,  Lucinda,  debarred  from 
entering  Yale,  237 

France,  and  State  University, 
169;  opinion  of  American 
schools,  271 

France,  University  of,  170 

Franciscans,  in  Florida,  183; 
in  New  Mexico,  183-84;  in 
California,  185,  186-87;  in 
Lower  California,  186;  and 
Catholic  University  of 
America,  204 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  and 
practical  education,  65  et 
seq.\  early  life  and  education, 
65-67;  establishes  the  Junto, 
67;  circulating  library,  67- 
68;  Proposals  Relating  to 
the  Education  of  Youth  in 
Pensilvania,  69-72;  Proposal 
for  Promoting  Useful  Know 
ledge  Among  the  British 
Plantations  in  America,  73- 
74;  American  Philosophical 
Society,  74;  The  Cause  and 
Cure  of  Smoky  Chimneys,  74; 
Boston  and  Philadelphia 
funds,  75-76;  Poor  Richard's 
Almanack,  76;  as  an  econo 
mist,  76-77;  and  electricity, 
77;  quoted,  77;  fond  of  telling 


Seymour's  retort  to  Blair, 
84  (note);  and  the  physio- 
cratic  school,  210-11;  mem 
ber  of  Philadelphia  Society 
for  Promoting  Agriculture, 
223;  and  vocational  training, 
232;  on  education  of  women, 
235-36 

Franklin  (Mass.),  named  for 
Benjamin  Franklin,  68;  Hor 
ace  Mann  born  in,  68,  124 

Franklin  College,  German  Col 
lege  of  Lancaster  (Penn.) 
becomes,  75 

Franklin  Institute,  75 

Franklin  Union,  76 

Fraternities,  278;  see  also  Phi 
Beta  Kappa 

"Free  School  Association," 
Sheldon  helps  found,  258 

Free  School  Society,  144;  see 
also  Public  School  Society 

French  Revolution  and  the 
Sulpicians,  192 

Friends,  and  education,  35-36; 
effect  of  religious  tolerance 
on  education,  36-37 

Froebel,  F.  W.  A.,  217-18 

"Fruitlands,"  Alcott's  com 
munistic  colony,  263-64 


G 


Gardiner  Lyceum,  213 

Garfield,  J.  A.,  257 

Gary  (Ind.),  Wirt's  system  of 
education,  217,  270 

Geneva,  University  of,  pro 
posal  to  transplant  to 
United  States,  101 

Georgetown  University,  191 

Georgia,  education  in,  43; 
"university,"  143 

Georgia  Female  College  (Wes- 
leyan  Female  College  of 
Macon),  239 

Georgia,  University  of,  organ 
ized  (1785),  168;  not  coedu 
cational,  179 


INDEX 


297 


German  College  of  Lancaster 
(Penn.),  75 

Germans,  in  Pennsylvania,  37- 
38,  151-52 

Germany,  Horace  Mann  and 
schools  of,  130,  131-32; 
influence  on  State  Univer 
sities,  172  et  seq.\  American 
students  in,  172-74;  opinion 
of  American  schools,  271 

Girard,  Stephen,  75 

Girard  College,  74-75 

Girls,  education  in  early  New 
England,  17-18;  in  New 
Netherland,  27;  academies, 
112-13,  114;  see  also  Coedu 
cation,  Women 

Gloucester  (Mass.),  eight- hour 
law  for  schoolmaster,  234- 
235 

Goodrich,  C.  A.,  A  History  of 
the  United  States  of  America, 
cited,  120  (note) 

Graduate  work,  273-75 

Grammar  schools,  see  Latin 
grammar  schools 

Grange  movement,  228 

Grant,  U.  S.,  and  national 
university,  102 

Great  War  proves  Americani 
zation  of  United  States 
people,  284 

Greek,  see  Classics 

Greek-letter  fraternities,  see 
Fraternities,  Phi  Beta 
Kappa 

Greene,  General,  and  national 
university,  97 

Guyot,  Arnold,  256 


Hall.  B.  R.,  quoted,  104 
Hamilton,       Alexander,      and 

"  University  of  the  State  of 

New  York,"  170 
Hamilton,    Sir    William,    plea 

for  British  university  reform, 

175 


Hampton  Institute,  Armstrong 
founder  of,  257;  Booker  T. 
Washington  at,  257 

Harper,  W.  R.,  President  of 
University  of  Chicago,  280- 
281 

Harris,  W.  T.,  139,  175;  A. 
Branson  Alcott,  His  Life  and 
Philosophy,  cited,  264 
(note) 

Harrison,  Benjamin,  signs  sec 
ond  Morrill  Act,  225 

Harrison,  W.  H.,  signs  act 
establishing  Vincennes  Uni 
versity,  161 

Hartford  (Conn.),  schools 
established,  8 

Hartford  Female  Seminary, 
240 

Harvard,  John,  46,  47 

Harvard  University,  cosmo 
politan,  2;  grammar  schools 
near,  10;  Harvard's  bequest 
to,  46-47;  early  entrance 
requirements,  49;  curricu 
lum,  49-50;  degrees,  50, 
274;  "disputations,"  50-51; 
early  presidents,  51-53; 
theological  battleground, 
51-53;  and  Yale,  53;  edu 
cational  monopoly,  54;  Will 
iam  and  Mary  second  to,  84; 
and  elective  system,  91, 
280;  State  appropriations  to, 
180;  Radcliffe  College  affili 
ated  with,  251;  graduate 
work,  275;  medical  school 
buildings,  276 

Hatch  Act  (1887),  225 

Hawaii,  land-grant  college, 
226;  students  from,  283 

Hayden,  F.  V.,  paleontological 
investigations  in  Trans 
actions  of  American  Philo 
sophical  Society,  74 

Hayes,  R.  B.,  and  national 
university,  102 

Henrico  (Va.),  plan  for  college 
for  Indians  at,  81 


298 


INDEX 


Henry,  Joseph,  experiments  in 
Transactions  of  American 
Philosophical  Society,  74 

Herbart,  J.  F.,  218 

High  schools,  establishment  of, 
111,  115-17;  coordination 
with  university,  178;  see  also 
Secondary  education 

Hingham  (Mass.)»  teachers' 
salaries,  13 

Hinsdale,  B.  A.,  Notes  on  the 
History  of  Foreign  Influences 
upon  Education  in  the  United 
States,  cited,  174  (note) 

Hitchcock,  Edward,  243 

HofwyJ,  "farm-school"  at,  218 

Holmes,  Ezekiel,  213 

Honor  system,  92 

Hopkins,  Mark,  257 

Hopkins  School,  New  Haven, 
234 

Horn-books,  14 

Hoyt,  J.  W.,  President  of 
Wyoming,  102;  urges  na 
tional  university,  177  (note) 

Hughes,  Bishop  of  New  York, 
197 

Huxley,  T.  H.,  quoted,  165 


I 


Illinois,  teachers  from  East,  2; 
land  grants  for  common 
schools,  159;  development  of 
colleges,  163-64 

Illinois  College,  Jacksonville, 
Turner  a  professor  in,  224 

Illinois  Industrial  University, 
see  Illinois,  University  of 

Illinois  State  Normal  Univer 
sity,  164 

Illinois,  University  of,  origin, 
164;  becomes  coeducational 
(1870),  179;  graduate  work, 
275 

Immigration,  effect  on  edu 
cation  in  New  York,  33; 
effect  in  Pennsylvania,  36; 
Catholic,  182;  Catholic  edu 


cation  of  children  of  immi 
grants,  205-06 

India,  students  from,  283 

Indiana,  land  grants  for  com 
mon  schools,  159;  establish 
ment  of  colleges,  161-63 

Indiana,  University  of,  Vin- 
cennes  University  becomes, 
162;  coeducational,  179; 
Lathrop,  President  of,  213 

Indians,  raids  an  obstacle  to 
learning,  6-7;  Society  for 
the  Propagation  of  the  Gos 
pel  and,  30,  32;  London 
Company  makes  grant  for 
college  for,  81-82;  Clinton 
favors  education  of,  148; 
and  Florida  missions,  183; 
and  Franciscans  in  New 
Mexico,  183-84;  in  Califor 
nia,  185,  186-87 

Industrial  education,  Lincoln's 
idea  of,  222;  see  also  Techni 
cal  education 

Ingalls,  J.  J.,  257 

Institute  of  Brothers  of  the 
Christian  Schools,  205 

Iowa,  University  of,  coedu 
cational,  179,  249 

Ireland,  Archbishop  John, 
devises  "Faribault  Plan," 
201;  appeals  to  Rome,  202 


James,  E.  J.,  President  of 
University  of  Illinois,  102; 

James,  William,  89 

James  River  Company,  Wash 
ington  gives  shares  to  Lib 
erty  Hall  Academy,  98 

Japan,  students  from,  283 

Jay,  John,  and  Jefferson's  plan 
of  public  education,  170 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  Priestley 
and,  74;  and  State  edu 
cation,  78  et  seq.,  94-95;  at 
College  of  William  and 
Mary,  84;  and  University  of 


INDEX 


299 


Jefferson,  Thomas — Continued 
Virginia,  87-93,  170;  Essay 
toward  facilitating  instruction 
in  Anglo-Saxon  and  Modern 
Dialects  of  the  English  Lan 
guage,  cited,  88  (note);  epi 
taph,  93;  and  national  uni 
versity,  100-01,  102;  and 
Washington,  101;  and  Ques- 
nay  de  Beaurepaire,  169; 
French  influence,  170;  and 
elective  system,  174,  280; 
and  Ursuline  school,  188-89; 
technical  education,  209-10, 
232;  member  of  Philadelphia 
Society  for  Promoting  Agri 
culture,  223;  introduces  bill 
providing  education  for  girls 
and  boys,  236;  and  educa 
tion  of  women,  240 

Jesuits,  found  college  at  Que 
bec,  184;  industrial  colonies 
in  Paraguay,  185;  in  Lower 
California,  185-86;  expelled, 
186;  deported  from  Mary 
land,  189;  school  in  New- 
town  (Md.),  190;  school  in 
New  York  City,  190; 
employed  as  tutors  in 
Maryland,  190;  preparatory 
school  at  Bohemia  Manor, 
191;  Georgetown  College, 
191;  colleges,  204 

Jewett,  Rev.  M.  P.,  239,  249 

Jogues,  Father,  Jesuit,  visits 
Manhattan  (1644),  182 

John  of  Nassau,  quoted,  22 

Johns  Hopkins  University, 
established,  274;  graduate 
work,  274,  275 

Johnson,  Clifton,  Old-  Time 
Schools  and  School- Books, 
cited,  16  (note) 

Johnson,  Samuel,  first  Presi 
dent  of  King's  College,  32; 
quoted,  57-58 

Judson  Female  Institute,  Mar 
ion  (Ala.),  239 

Junto,  67 


Kansas,  teachers  from  East,  2 

Kansas,  University  of,  coedu 
cation,  179,  249 

Kemp,  W.  W.,  The  Support  of 
Schools  in  Colonial  New 
York  by  the  Society  for  the 
Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in 
Foreign  Parts,  cited,  33 
(note) 

Kentucky,  Virginia  and,  95; 
Catholics  in,  195-97;  teach 
ing  communities  of  women, 
196-97 

Kilpatrick,  Dutch  Schools  of 
New  Netherland,  cited,  27 
(note) 

King  William's  School,  Annap 
olis  (Md.),  41 

King's  College,  Johnson  as 
President  of,  32,  57-58; 
Anglican,  56;  renamed  Co 
lumbia,  142;  see  also  Colum 
bia  University 

Knight,  Public  School  Edu 
cation  in  North  Carolina, 
cited,  154  (note) 


Lalor,  Alice,  opens  school  for 

girls  at  Georgetown,  194 
Lancaster     (Penn.),     German 

College,  75 
Lancaster  plan  of  teaching,  see 

Bell-Lancaster  system 
Land  grants,  in   New  Jersey, 

40;  federal,   157  et  seq.;  see 

also  Morrill  Act 
Land  Ordinance  of  1785,  159 
Lane     Theological     Seminary, 

Cincinnati,       Mahan      and, 

247 
Lansing    (Mich.),    agricultural 

college,  226 
La  Salle,  St.  Jean  Baptiste  de, 

founder  of  Christian  Broth 
ers,  205 


300 


INDEX 


Lathrop,  J.  H.,  213 

Latin  grammar  schools,  111; 
in  New  England,  9-10;  in 
New  Netherland,  24;  in 
Maryland,  41-42 

Laval,  Bishop,  184 

Laval  University,  185 

Lawrence  College,  Appleton 
(Wis.),  248 

Legislation,  Alabama,  238; 
Connecticut,  1,  19-20; 
Maine,  213-14;  Maryland, 
41;  Massachusetts,  1,  4-6, 
19-21,  115,  208-09,  234; 
Michigan,  171,  172,  175, 
178;  New  York,  28-29,  143- 
144, 148-49;  North  Carolina, 
42;  Pennsylvania,  34-35, 
152-53;  South  Carolina,  41, 
42;  training  in  crafts,  209; 
Virginia,  82-83;  see  also 
Morrill  Act 

Leidy,  Joseph,  paleontological 
investigations  in  Trans 
actions  of  American  Philo 
sophical  Society,  74 

Leipziger,  Dr.  H.  M.,  and  New 
York  lecture  system,  281 

Leland  Stanford,  Junior,  Uni 
versity,  founded,  275;  archi 
tecture,  276 

Leo  XIII,  Pope,  establishes 
Catholic  University  of 
America,  204 

Leverett,  John,  President  of 
Harvard,  53 

Lexington  (Mass.),  first  nor 
mal  school  in  America,  128 

Liberty  Hall  Academy  be 
comes  Washington  and  Lee 
University,  98 

Libraries,  Franklin  and,  67-69 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  and  Morrill 
Acts,  222,  224-25;  on  indus 
trial  education,  222,  232 

Lombard  University,  Gales- 
burg,  (111.),  248 

London  Company  of  Virginia, 
79-80,  81 


Longfellow,  H.  W.,  student  in 

Germany,  174 
Lorettines,  see   Sisters    of  Lo- 

retto 

Louisiana,  Catholic,  182 
Louisiana  Purchase,  188 
Lowell,  J.  R.,  on  Alcott,  264 
Lutheran     Church    in     Penn 
sylvania,  37 

Luyck,  Rev.  ^Egidius,  26 
Lyon,    C.    H.,    Causes    of   the 
Backward     State    of    Sound 
Learning  of  the  United  States, 
cited,  122  (note) 
Lyon,  Mary,  quoted,  233;  life 
and  education,  241-43;  and 
Mount  Holyoke,  243-45 

M 

McClure,  David,  on  education 
of  girls,  235 

Macon,  Wesleyan  Female  Col 
lege  of,  239 

Madison,  James,  and  national 
university,  102 

Magazines  as  text-books,  121- 
122 

Mahan,  Rev.  Asa,  first  Presi 
dent  of  Oberlin,  247 

Maine,  teachers'  salaries,  13; 
and  agricultural  education, 
213-14 

Maine,  University  of,  214 

Mann,  Horace,  256;  life  and 
education,  68-69,  124-26; 
and  the  American  school, 
124  et  seq.\  secretary  of 
Massachusetts  Board  of 
Education,  126-34;  Com 
mon  School  Journal,  128; 
and  teachers'  training, 
128-29;  and  teaching  of 
music,  129-30;  criticism  of. 
130-31,  133-34;  German  in 
fluence,  131-33,  175;  elected 
to  Congress,  135;  President 
of  Antioch  College,  135, 
248;  death  (1859),  135; 


INDEX 


301 


Mann,  Horace— Continued 
interests,    135-36;    estimate 
of,      136-37;     inspired     by 
Stowe,  161 

Manual  training,  217-19 

Marion  (Ala.),  Judson  Female 
Institute,  239 

Marists  and  Catholic  Univer 
sity  of  America,  204 

Marshall,  John,  at  College  of 
William  and  Mary,  84-85 

Martin,  G.  H.,  Evolution  of  the 
Massachusetts  Public  School 
System,  cited,  18  (note) 

Maryland,  public  schools,  41- 
42;  number  of  Catholics  in 
(1789),  182;  origin  of  Catho 
lic  education  in,  189;  agri 
cultural  college,  226 

Mason,  Lowell,  and  music 
teaching,  130 

Masons,  education  of  women 
in  South,  238 

Massachusetts,  school  law 
(1647),  1,  5-6;  school  law 
(1642),  4-5,  208-09,  234; 
grammar  schools,  10-12; 
school  law  (1789),  19-20; 
district  schools,  105-06;  see 
also  District  school  system; 
law  of  1827,  106;  academies, 
113;  high  school  law,  (1826), 
115;  Horace  Mann  in,  139; 
contrasted  with  New  York 
in  methods  of  education, 
141;  see  also  Boston,  Har 
vard  University 

Massachusetts  Bay,  first  col 
ony  to  establish  public 
schools,  3-4 

Massachusetts  Institute  of 
Technolcgy,  226,  276 

Mather,  Cotton,  11,  12,  51,  53, 
67 

Mather,  Increase,  53 

Mayflower,  the  (ship),  79 

Mechanics  Mutual  Protection 
Society,  223 

Medicine,  first  school  in  Amer 


ica  at  University  of  Penn 
sylvania,  73;  in  State  Uni 
versities,  167;  architecture 
of  Harvard  school  of,  276 

Mennonites  in  Pennsylvania, 
37 

Methodist  Church,  in  Penn 
sylvania,  37;  education  of 
women  in  South,  238;  Eliza 
beth  Academy,  239 

Mexico,  secularizes  missions, 
187;  appropriates  Pious 
Fund,  188 

Miami  University,  160 

Michigan,  "university"  ex 
periment,  143;  agricultural 
college,  226 

Michigan,  University  of, 
"mother  of  the  State  Uni 
versities,"  169;  modeled 
after  University  of  France, 
171;  German  influence,  175- 
176;  rectoral  plan,  176;  ad 
mits  women  (1870),  179;  State 
support,  180;  graduate  work, 
275. 

Military  education,  99-100, 
227 

Minnesota,  University  of,  co 
educational,  179,  249 

Mississippi  Valley,  colleges 
established,  156 

Missouri,  teaching  communi 
ties  of  women,  197 

Missouri,  University  of,  be 
comes  coeducational,  179; 
Lathrop  as  President  of, 
213 

Mitchell,  Maria,  238 

Monroe,  James,  at  College  of 
William  and  Mary,  84;  and 
national  university,  102 

Monroe,  Paul,  Cyclopedia  of 
Education,  cited,  159  (note) 

Monteith,  Rev.  John,  at  Uni 
versity  of  Michigan,  172 

Moravians  in  Pennsylvania, 
37,  38;  schools  for  girls, 
236 


302 


INDEX 


Morgan,  E.  B.,  founder  of 
Wells  College,  250 

Merrill,  J.  S.,  225 

Morrill  Act,  164,  220,  221  et 
seq. 

Morse,  Jedediah,  119 

Motley,  J.  L.,  student  in  Ger 
many,  174 

Mount  Holyoke  College, 
"  Mount  Holyoke  Female 
Seminary,"  243-45;  char 
tered  as  college  (1888),  245 

Mount  St.  Mary's,  Emmits- 
burg  (Md.),  191-92 

Music,  Horace  Mann  intro 
duces  into  public  schools, 
129-30 


N 


Napoleon  and  University  of 
France,  170 

National  Association  of  State 
Universities  endorses  na 
tional  university,  102 

National  Educational  Associ 
ation  endorses  national  uni 
versity,  102 

National  University,  Wash 
ington  and,  95  et  seq.;  Hoyt 
urges,  177  (note) 

Nazareth  (Penn.),  Moravian 
school  for  girls,  236 

Neale,  Father,  President  of 
Georgetown  College,  194 

Negroes  admitted  to  Oberlin, 
247 

Nemours,  Dupont  de,  Jefferson 
and,  170 

Nerinckx,  Father,  in  Ken 
tucky,  195,  196 

New  Amstel  (New  Castle, 
Del.),  Dutch  teacher  at, 
25 

New  Amsterdam,  public 
school,  24;  Latin  school 
started  (1652),  25 

"New  education,  the,"  253  et 


New  England,  schools  of  early, 
1  et  seq.;  Church  of  England 
schools  in,  30;  colleges 
established,  208;  state  of 
colleges  (1850),  214;  frater 
nities  in  colleges  of,  278 

New    England    Primer,    14-15 

New  England's  First  Fruits, 
quoted,  46 

New  Hampshire  follows  school 
system  of  Massachusetts,  8 

New  Harmony  (Ind.),  com 
munistic  colony,  218 

New  Haven,  school  laws,  8; 
Yale  College  moved  to,  54 

New  Jersey,  College  of  (Prince 
ton),  56,  60-61;  see  also 
Princeton  University 

New  Jersey,  schools,  39-40 

New  Mexico,  Catholic,  182; 
Franciscan  missions,  183 

New  Netherland,  schools  in,  22 
et  seq. 

New  Orleans,  elementary  edu 
cation  begun  (1722),  188; 
girls'  schools,  236 

New  Sweden,  schools,  38-39 

New  York,  English  edu 
cational  work  in,  28  et  seq.; 
Society  for  the  Propagation 
of  the  Gospel  in,  30-31; 
tries  to  make  schools  demo 
cratic,  141;  public  school 
system  established,  144;  bill 
for  education  of  women, 
240;  coeducational  univer 
sities,  251;  fraternities  in 
colleges,  278;  see  also  New 
Netherland 

New  York  City,  law  to  provide 
public  support  of  teacher 
in  (1702),  28-39;  Trinity 
Church  Charity  school,  31; 
high  schools,  115;  Public 
School  Society,  144-47,  197; 
debt  to  DeWitt  Clinton, 
145;  Jesuit  school  (1684), 
190;  Catholic  schools,  197; 
"no  Popery"  agitation  in. 


INDEX 


303 


New  York  City — Continued 

197-98;  free  lecture  system, 

281 
New  York,  College  of  the  City 

of,  147 

New  York  University,  251 
New  York,   University  of  the 

State  of,  142-43,  170 
Newport    (R.    I.)    establishes 

town  schools,  7 
Newspapers      as      text-books, 

121-22 
Newtown         (Md.),     Catholic 

school,  189-90 
Normal  schools,    128-29,    176, 

258,  259-60,  268,  267 
North     Carolina,     appeal     to 

Legislature    against    general 

education,     153-54;     public 

schools      established,      154; 

Constitution     provides     for 

university,     168;     see     also 

Carolinas 


O 


Oberlin,  J.  F.,  245 

Oberlin  College,  160;  Oberlin 
Collegiate  Institute  founded, 
245-46;  first  coeducational 
college,  246-47 

"Oberlin  Covenant,"  245 

Odd  Fellows,  education  of 
women  in  South,  238 

Ohio,  teachers  from  East,  2; 
land  grants  for  common 
schools,  159;  colleges  of, 
160 

Ohio  Company,  159-60 

Ohio  State  University,  160 

Ohio,  University  of,  160 

Oftate,  Juan  de,  expedition  in 
to  New  Mexico  (1598),  183 

Ordinance  of  1787,  quoted, 
155 

Oswego  (N.  Y.),  normal  school, 
258,  259-60 

Owen,  R.  D.,  218 

Oxford    University,    American 


youth  attracted  to,  44; 
Rhodes  scholarships,  45; 
American  college  buildings 
modeled  after,  276 


Palmer,  Edwin,  plans  univer 
sity  in  Virginia,  82 
Parker,  Colonel  F.  W.,  264-67, 

270 

Parker,    Theodore,    and    Hor 
ace  Mann,  136 
Paulist  Fathers  and   Catholic 

University  of  America,  204 
Penn,     William,     quoted,    34; 

settlement  planned  by,  34 
Pennsylvania,  teachers  from 
East,  2;  schools,  34-38,  151- 
153;  school  laws,  34-35;  152- 
153;  Constitution  provides 
for  university,  168;  Catho 
lics  in,  182,  194;  agricultural 
college,  226 

"Pennsylvania  Dutch,"  37 
Pennsylvania,    University    of, 
independent    of    denomina 
tional  influence,  57;  Frank 
lin's  Academy   develops  in 
to,  73,   112;  graduate  work, 
275;  architecture,  276 
People's  College,  223-24 
People's  party  (1892),  228 
Perry,       Commodore,       opens 

ports  of  Japan,  283 
Persia,  students  from,  284 
Pestalozzi,  J.  H.,  217 
Phi  Beta  Kappa,  62,  85,  278 
Philadelphia,      Flower     opens 
school  in,  35;  William  Penn 
Charter  School,  35;  Franklin 
in,  66;  Franklin  and  schools 
of,       74-75;       Franklin    be 
queaths  fund  to,  75-76;  high 
schools,    115;   first   Catholic 
parochial    school,    195;    "no 
Popery"  agitation,    197-98; 
Franklin's  project  for  "Pub- 
lick  Academy,"  211 


304 


INDEX 


Philadelphia  Society  for  Pro 
moting  Agriculture,  223 

Philippine  Islands,  Catholic, 
182;  land-grant  college,  226; 
education  in,  282-83;  stu 
dents  from,  283 

Phillips,  Wendell,  136 

Phillips  Academy  at  Andover 
(Mass.),  112 

Phillips  Academy  at  Exeter 
(N.H.),  112 

Pierce,  Cyrus,  128-29 

Pietersen,  Evert,  26 

Pious  Fund,  188 

Plymouth  (Mass.),  provides 
instruction  (1670),  3;  merged 
with  Massachusetts,  3 

Porto  Rico,  Catholic,  182; 
land-grant  college,  226; 
students  from,  283 

Portsmouth  (N.  H.),  school  for 
girls,  (1773),  235 

Potomac  River  Navigation 
Company,  Washington  gives 
shares  to  found  national 
university,  93 

"  Poughkeepsie  Plan,"  201 

Presbyterian  Church,  College 
of  New  Jersey,  56;  education 
of  women  in  South,  238 

Priestley,  Joseph,  Experiments 
and  Observations  on  different 
kinds  of  air,  74 

Princeton  University,  honor 
system  at,  92;  buildings, 
276;  personal  instruction, 
276-77;  and  Greek-letter 
fraternities,  279;  see  also 
New  Jersey,  College  of 

Providence  (R.  I.),  establishes 
town  schools,  7 

Public  School  Society,  144-47, 
97 

Public  schools,  origin  of  Amer 
ican,  1  et  seq.\  arguments 
against  in  New  York,  150- 
151;  Catholic  teachers  in, 
200-01;  curriculum,  253-54; 
complaints  against,  267-70; 


see  also,  District  school  sys 
tem,     Elementary     schools. 
High  schools,  Rural  schools. 
Secondary  schools 
Pupil  teaching,  145-46 
Purdue,  John,  162 
Purdue  University,  162 


Q 


Quakers,  see  Friends 

Quebec,  Jesuits  found  college 
at  (1635),  184;  Laval  Uni 
versity,  185 

Quebec  Seminary  founded 
(1663),  184 

Queens  College  (Rutgers),  56; 
becomes  agricultural  college, 
213 

Quincy  (Mass.),  Parker  in, 
265-66 

R 

Radcliffe  College,  251 

Randolph,  Peyton,  at  College 
of  William  and  Mary,  84 

Recollets  in  northern  colonies, 
185 

"Rensselaer  plan"  of  student 
demonstration,  216-17 

Rensselaer  Polytechnic  Insti 
tute,  opened  (1825),  100, 
216;  Mary  Lyon  at,  242- 
243 

Rhode  Island,  lack  of  public 
provision  for  education  in, 
7;  debt  to  Barnard,  138,  139 

Rhodes,  Anne,  196 

Rhodes,  Cecil,  45,  96-97 

Richard,  Father  Gabriel,  and 
University  of  Michigan,  172, 
192 

Richmond  (Va.),  capital 
removed  to,  85 

Robert  College,  Constanti 
nople,  282 

Rockefeller,  J.  D.,  founds 
University  of  Chicago,  275 


INDEX 


305 


Rockfish  Gap,  committee 
meets  to  draw  up  plan  for 
"Central  College,"  86 

Roe,  E.  P.,  257 

Roelantsen,  Adam,  24 

Rogers,  John,  15 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  quoted, 
168 

Round  Hill  School,  173 

Roxbury,  Eliot  establishes 
school  at,  12 

Rural  schools,  conditions  in 
New  York,  150 


S 


S.  P.  G.,  see  Society  for  the 
Propagation  of  the  Gospel 
in  Foreign  Parts 

St.  Augustine,  classical  school 
(1606),  183 

St.  John's  College,  Barnard  as 
President  of,  138 

St.  Mary's  Seminary,  Balti 
more,  Dubourg  founds,  192, 
193 

St.  Omer,  College  of,  Catholic 
sons  sent  to,  190-91 

Salaries  of  teachers  12-13,  26- 
27,  204 

Salem  (N.  C.),  Moravian 
Female  Academy,  236 

Sanborn,  F.  B.,  and  Harris, 
W.  T.,  A.  Branson  Alcott, 
His  Life  and  Philosophy, 
cited,  264  (note) 

Sanderson  Academy,  Ashfield, 
Mary  Lyon  at,  241 

San  Diego,  mission  established 
(1769),  186 

San  Jose,  Borica  opens  school 
in,  187 

San  Miguel,  mission  sold 
(1846),  187 

Sarmiento,  "the  Horace  Mann 
of  South  America,"  137 

Saybrook  (Conn.),  Yale  Col 
lege  at,  54 


Schneider,  Rev.  Theodore, 
194-95 

School  laws,  see  Legislation 

Schoolhouses,  in  early  New 
England,  15-16;  district 
schools,  107-08;  community 
center,  110 

Schwenkfelders  in  Penn 
sylvania,  37 

Scotch-Irish  establish  Liberty 
Hall  Academy,  98 

Secondary  education,  111-17; 
see  also  Academies,  High 
schools,  Latin  grammar 
schools 

Serra,  Father  Junipero,  estab 
lishes  mission  at  San  Diego 
(1769),  186 

Seton,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Ann, 
193 

Seventh  Day  Baptists  in  Penn 
sylvania,  37 

Seward,  Governor  of  New 
York,  Annual  Message 
(1842)  quoted,  147 

Seymour,  Attorney-General, 
and  founding  of  College  of 
William  and  Mary,  83 

Sharp,  Chaplain  John,  quoted, 
33 

Sheldon,  E.  A.,  258-59,  270 

Shipherd,  J.  J.,  245 

Sisters  of  Charity,  Mrs.  Seton 
organizes,  193 

Sisters  of  Charity  of  Nazareth, 
196 

Sisters  of  Charity  of  St.  Vin 
cent  de  Paul,  193-94 

"Sisters  of  Loretto,"  196 

Sisters  of  St.  Dominic,  196- 
197 

Sisters  of  the  Visitation,  194 

Slaves,  work  of  Society  for  the 
Propagation  of  the  Gospel 
among,  32 

Slosson,  E.  E.,  Six  Major  Pro 
phets,  cited,  267  (note) 

Small,  W.  IL,  Early  New  Eng 
land  School*,  cited,  5  (note) 


306 


INDEX 


Smith,  Sophia,  250 
Smith  College,  250 
Smith-Lever  Act  (1914),  225 
Society  for  Promoting  Manual 

Labor    in    Literary    Institu 
tions,  218 
"Society  for  the  Promotion  of 

Christian  Knowledge  Among 

the   Germans   in    America," 

37 
Society  for  the  Propagation  of 

the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts, 

29-32,  43 
"Society    of    the    Friends    of 

Mary  Sorrowing  at  the  Foot 

of   the   Cross   of   Our   Lord 

Jesus  Christ,"  196 
Society  of  St.  Sulpice,  see  Sul- 

picians 
South,      distinction      between 

schooling  and  education,  43; 

sends  boys  to  England,  44; 

education  of  women  in,  238- 

239 
South  America,  students  from, 

284 
South  Carolina,  tax-supported 

county    schools,    41;    school 

laws,  42 
South  Hadley  (Mass.),  Mount 

Holyoke  at,  243 
Sparks,     Works     of    Benjamin 

Franklin,  cited,  84  (note) 
Spaulding,  Archbishop,  quoted, 

181 

Springfield      (Mass.),     experi 
ment  at,  268 
Stanford,  Leland,  275 
Stanford         University,        see 

Leland      Stanford,      Junior, 

University 
State  Universities,  religion  in, 

157;   and  land   grants,    158; 

and  denominational  colleges, 

166;  general  characteristics, 

166-67;  rise  of,   168  et  seq.; 

and    Catholic   high   schools, 

202-03;    coeducation,    248- 

249;  see  also  Colleges,  names 


of  colleges  and  universities, 
Universities 

Steiner,  B.  C.,  History  of  Edu 
cation  in  Maryland,  cited,  42 
(note),  45  (note) 

Stevens,  Thaddeus,  152 

Stewart,  Rev.  K.  J.,  A  Geog 
raphy  for  Beginners,  120-21 

Stewart,  P.  P.,  245 

Stowe,  C.  E.,  160-61 

Student  Army  Training  Corps, 
100 

Sulpicians,  in  North,  185; 
Mount  St.  Mary's  College, 
191-92;  fugitives  from 
France,  192-93;  work  in 
America,  192-94;  and 
Catholic  University  of 
America,  204 

Surveying,  see  Engineering 

Sweden,  education  in,  38 

Swedes,  at  New  Amstel,  25;  on 
the  Delaware,  37,  38 

Switzerland,  contribution  to 
educational  science,  256 

Symms  School,  80 

Syracuse  (N.  Y.),  Sheldon  in, 
259 

Syracuse  University,  251 

Syria,  students  from,  284 

Syrian  Protestant  College, 
Beirut,  282 


Tappan,  H.  P.,  President  of 
Universitv  of  Michigan,  175, 
176-77 

Taunton,  (Mass.),  teachers' 
salaries,  13 

Taylor,  J.  W.,  250 

Teachers,  educational  require 
ments  in  New  England,  20; 
salaries,  12-13,  26-27,  204; 
in  New  Netherland,  27-28; 
in  Maryland,  41-42;  changed 
relations  with  pupil,  254 

Technical  education,  207  et 
seq. 


INDEX 


307 


Tejada,  Bishop,  reopens  semi 
nary  at  St.  Augustine  (1736), 
183 

Tennessee,  University  of,  168 

Texas,  land  grants  in,  165; 
Catholic,  182 

Texas,  University  of,  165 

Text-books,  of  New  England, 
1-2,  14-15;  of  Society  for  the 
Propagation  of  the  Gospel, 
31;  American,  117-21;  Web 
ster's,  117-19;  newspapers 
and  magazines  as,  121-23 

Thomas,  M.Carey, quoted,  250 

Thonin,  superintendent  of  the 
Jardin  des  Plantes,  sends 
seeds  to  Jefferson,  210 

Thorpe,  George,  81 

Thwing,  C.  F.,  History  of 
Higher  Education  in  Amer 
ica.,  cited,  174  (note) 

Ticknor,  George,  91,  172-73, 
280 

Tracy,  Count  Destutt  de, 
introduces  term  "  Ideology, " 
88 

Trent,  W.  P.,  English  Culture 
in  Virginia,  cited,  89  (note) 

Tribune,  New  York,  quoted, 
149;  aids  agitation  for 
People's  College,  223 

Troy  (N.  Y.),  Van  Rensselaer 
founds  technical  school  at, 
216;  see  also  Rensselaer  Poly 
technic  Institute;  Emma 
Willard  Seminary,  240 

Turkey,  American  schools  in, 
282;  students  from,  284 

Turner,  J.  B.,  164,  224 

Tuskegee  Institute,  219,  257 

Tyler,  John,  at  College  of  Wil 
liam  and  Mary,  84 

Tyler,  W.  S.,  trustee  of  Mount 
Holyoke,  quoted,  243 


Union      College,      fraternities 
founded  at,  278 


United  States,  government 
educational  agencies,  103; 
an  educational  experiment 
station,  271-72 

United  States  Bureau  of  Edu 
cation,  Circular  of  Infor 
mation,  No.  1,  cited,  91 
(note) 

Universities  of  today,  273  et 
seq.;  see  also  Colleges,  names 
of  colleges,  State  Univer 
sities 

Ursuline  nuns,  in  North,  184, 
185;  convent  school  in  New 
Orleans,  188,  236 


Van  Rensselaer,  Stephen,  216 

Vassar,  Matthew,  249 

Vassar  College,  opened  (1865), 
238,  247;  astronomy  at,  238; 
Jewett  President  of,  239; 
chartered  as  "  Vassar  Female 
College"  (1861),  250 

Vermont,  school  establishment 
in,  8;  Constitution  provides 
for  university,  168 

Vincennes  University,  161-62; 
see  also  Indiana,  University 
of 

Virginia,  disputes  school  pri 
macy  with  New  England,  1; 
public  school  system  estab 
lished,  79;  early  history  of 
education  in,  79  et  seq.;  gift 
of  shares  to  Washington  as 
reward  for  services,  98; 
academies,  113 

Virginia,  University  of,  Jeffer 
son's  plan  for,  86-88,  170; 
curriculum,  87-88;  has  per 
manent  president,  92;  honor 
system  at,  92;  French  in 
fluence,  172;  elective  system, 
174,  280;  follows  German 
model,  176;  not  coeduca 
tional,  179;  agriculture  at, 
210,  211 


308 


INDEX 


Visitation  Order  of  St.  Francis 
de  Sales,  convent  and  acad 
emy,  194 

Vocational  specialization,  Jef 
ferson  and,  91;  see  also  Tech 
nical  education 

W 

Walker,  F.  A.,  quoted,  207 

Washington,  B.  T.,  219 

Washington,  and  national  edu 
cation,  94  et  seq.,  232;  na 
tional  university,  95-96,  97- 
98,  102;  on  need  of  military 
academy,  99;  and  agri 
cultural  education,  216,  223 

Washington  and  Lee  Univer 
sity,  98 

Washington,  University  of, 
coeducation,  249 

Wayland,  President  of  Brown 
University,  175,  214-15 

Webster,  Daniel,  and  Horace 
Mann,  135;  quoted,  155 

Webster,  Noah,  text-books,  15, 
117-19 

Wellesley  College,  250 

Wells,  D.  A.,  257 

Wells,  Henry,  250 

Wells  College,  250 

Wesleyan  Female  College  of 
Macon  (Ga.),  239 

West,  establishment  of  col 
leges,  156;  collegiate  compe 
tition,  157 

West  India  Company,  see 
Dutch  West  India  Com 
pany 

West  Jersey,  education  in,  40; 
see  also  New  Jersey 

West  Point,  Military  Acad 
emy  at,  99-100 

Western  Literary  Institute, 
160 

Western  Reserve  University, 
160 

White,  Father  Andrew,  189 


White,  A.  D.,  President  of  Cor 
nell,  102,  175,  178,  180 

Willard,  Mrs.  Emma  Hart,  A 
Plan  for  Improving  Female 
Education,  239 

William  and  Mary,  College  of, 
founding  of,  82  et  seq.;  Phi 
Beta  Kappa  founded  at,  85, 
278;  represented  in  Virginia 
House  of  Burgesses,  85; 
closed  for  seven  years,  86; 
Episcopalian,  98;  Washing 
ton  and,  98 

William  Penn  Charter  School, 
35 

Williams,  Roger,  52 

Williamsburg,  capital  removed 
from,  85;  in  Revolutionary 
and  Civil  Wars,  86 

Wilson,  Father,  196-97 

Wilson,  Woodrow,  quoted,  273 

Wirt,  W.  A.,  270 

Wisconsin,  federal  land  grant, 
164 

Wisconsin  State  Agricultural 
Society,  Lincoln's  address 
before,  222 

Wisconsin,  University  of,  Bar 
nard  as  Chancellor  of,  138; 
founded  (1848),  164;  Lath- 
rop  as  President  of,  213; 
graduate  work,  275 

Women,  Clinton  favors  higher 
education  for,  148;  admis 
sion  to  State  Universities, 
179-80;  Catholic  teaching 
communities,  196-97;  Catho 
lic  University  of  America 
conducts  summer  school  for, 
204;  higher  education  for, 
233  et  seq.;  early  curriculum 
for,  237-38;  teachers  in  ele 
mentary  grades,  268-69;  col 
lege  attendance  (1893-1913), 
252;  see  also  Coeducation, 
Girls 

Woodward,  Judge,  plans  Uni 
versity  of  Michigan,  171 

Woolsey,  T.  D.,  174 


INDEX 


309 


Yale,  Elihu,  55 

Yale  University,  cosmopolitan, 

2;  founding  of  (1701),  53-54; 

degrees,  273,  274;  graduate 

work.  275 


Young,  Arthur,  chosen  pro 
fessor  of  agriculture  by 
Jefferson,  210 

Ypsilanti  (Mich.),  normal 
school,  176 


AN  OUTLINE  OF  THE  PLAN  .OF 
THE  CHRONICLES  OF  AMERICA 


The  fifty  titles  of  the  Series  fall  into  eight  topical  sequences  or  groups, 
each  with  a  dominant  theme  of  its  own— 

I.   The  Morning  of  America 
TIME:  1492-1763 

£  theme  of  the  first  sequence  is  the  struggle  of  nations  for  the 
possession  of  the  New  World.  The  mariners  of  four  European  king 
doms — Spain,  Portugal,  France,  and  England — are  intent  upon  the 
discovery  of  a  new  route  to  Asia.  They  come  upon  the  American  continent 
which  blocks  the  way.  Spain  plants  colonies  in  the  south,  lured  by  gold. 
France,  in  pursuit  of  the  fur  trade,  plants  colonies  in  the  north.  Englishmen, 
in  search  of  homes  and  of  a  wider  freedom,  occupy  the  Atlantic  seaboard. 
These  Englishmen  come  in  time  to  need  the  land  into  which  the  French 
have  penetrated  by  way  of  the  St.  Lawrence  and  the  Great  Lakes,  and  a 
mighty  struggle  between  the  two  nations  takes  place  in  the  wilderness, 
ending  in  the  expulsion  of  the  French.  This  sequence  comprises  ten  volumes: 

I.  THE  RED  MAN'S  CONTINENT,  by  Ellsworth  Huntington 
1.  THE  SPANISH  CONQUERORS,  by  Irving  Berdine  Richman 

3.  ELIZABETHAN  SEA-DOGS,  by  William  Wood 

4.  CRUSADERS  OF  NEW  FRANCE,  by  William  Bennett  Munro 

5.  PIONEERS  OF  THE  OLD  SOUTH,  by  Mary  Johnston 

6.  THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND,  by  Charles  M.  Andrews 

7.  DUTCH  AND  ENGLISH  ON  THE  HUDSON,  by  Maud  Wilder  Goodwin 

8.  THE  QUAKER  COLONIES,  by  Sydney  G.  Fisher 

9.  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS,  by  Charles  M.  Andrews 

IO.  THE  CONQUEST  OF  NEW  FRANCE,  by  George  M.  Wrong 


II.  The  Winning  of  Independence 
TIME:  1763-1815 

The  French  peril  has  passed,  and  the  great  territory  between  the  Alta 
ghanies  and  the  Mississippi  is  now  open  to  the  Englishmen  on  the  seaboard, 
with  no  enemy  to  contest  their  right  of  way  except  the  Indian.  But  the 
question  arises  whether  these  Englishmen  in  the  New  World  shall  submit 
to  political  dictation  from  the  King  and  Parliament  of  England.  To  decide 
this  question  the  War  of  the  Revolution  is  fought;  the  Union  is  born: 
and  the  second  war  with  England  follows.  Seven  volumes: 

11.  THE  EVE  OF  THE  REVOLUTION,  by  Carl  Becker 

12.  WASHINGTON  AND  HIS  COMRADES  IN  ARMS,  by  George  M.  Wrong 

13.  THE  FATHERS  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION,  by  Max  Farrand 

14.  WASHINGTON  AND  HIS  COLLEAGUES,  by  Henry  Jones  Ford 

15.  JEFFERSON  AND  HIS  COLLEAGUES,  by  Allen  Johnson 

16.  JOHN  MARSHALL  AND  THE  CONSTITUTION,  by  Edward  S.  CoriDltt 

17.  THE  FIGHT  FOR  A  FREE  SEA,  by  Ralph  D.  Paine 

III.   The  Vision  of  the  West 
TIME:  1750-1890 

The  theme  of  the  third  sequence  is  the  American  frontier — the  conquest 
of  the  continent  from  the  Alleghanies  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  The  story  covers 
nearly  a  century  and  a  half,  from  the  first  crossing  of  the  Alleghanieo  by 
the  backwoodsmen  of  Pennsylvania,  Virginia,  and  the  Carolinas  (about 
1750)  to  the  heyday  of  the  cowboy  on  the  Great  Plains  in  the  latter  part 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  This  is  the  marvelous  tale  of  the  greatest  migra 
tions  in  history,  told  in  nine  volumes  as  follows: 

1 8.  PIONEERS  OF  THE  OLD  SOUTHWEST,  by  Constance  Lindsay  Skinner 

19.  THE  OLD  NORTHWEST,  by  Frederic  Austin  Ogg 

20.  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON,  by  Frederic  Austin  Ogg 

21.  THE  PATHS  OF  INLAND  COMMERCE,  by  Archer  B.  Hulbert 

22.  ADVENTURERS  OF  OREGON,  by  Constance  Lindsay  Skinner 

23.  THE  SPANISH  BORDERLANDS,  by  Herbert  E.  Bolton 

24.  TEXAS  AND  THE  MEXICAN  WAR,  by  Nathaniel  W.  Stephenso* 

25.  THE  FORTY-NINERS,  by  Stewart  Edward  White 

l6.  THE  PASSING  OF  THE  FRONTIER,  b'J  Emerson  Hough 


IV.   The  Storm  of  Secession 
TIME:  1830-1876 

The  curtain  rises  on  the  gathering  storm  of  secession.  The  theme  of  the 
fourth  sequence  is  the  preservation  of  the  Union,  which  carries  with  it  the 
extermination  of  slavery.  Six  volumes  as  follows: 

27.  THE  COTTON  KINGDOM,  by  William  E.  Dodd 

28.  THE  ANTI-SLAVERY  CRUSADE,  by  JeSSC  Macy 

29.  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION,  by  Nathaniel  IV.  Stephenson 

30.  THE  DAY  OF  THE  CONFEDERACY,  by  Nathaniel  W.  Stephenson 

31.  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR,  by  William  Wood 

32.  THE  SEQUEL  OF  APPOMATTOX,  by  Walter  Lynwood  Fleming 

V.   The  Intellectual  Life 

Two  volumes  follow  on  the  higher  national  life,  telling  of  the  nation's  great 
teachers  and  interpreters: 

33.  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION,  by  Edwin  E.  SloSSOIt 

34.  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  LITERATURE,  by  BUSS  Perry 

VI.   The  Epic  of  Commerce  and  Industry 

The  sixth  sequence  is  devoted  to  the  romance  of  industry  and  business, 
and  the  dominant  theme  is  the  transformation  caused  by  the  inflow  of 
immigrants  and  the  development  and  utilization  of  mechanics  on  a  great 
scale.  The  long  age  of  muscular  power  has  passed,  and  the  era  of  mechanical 
power  has  brought  with  it  a  new  kind  of  civilization.  Eight  volumes: 

35.  OUR  FOREIGNERS,  by  Samuel  P.  Orth 

36.  THE  OLD  MERCHANT  MARINE,  by  Ralph  D.  Paine 

37.  THE  AGE  OF  INVENTION,  by  Holland  Thompson 

38.  THE  RAILROAD  BUILDERS,  by  John  Moody 

3f.  THE  AGE  OF  BIG  BUSINESS,  by  BurtOrt  J.  HfttdHfk 

40.  THE  ARMIES  OF  LABOR,  by  Samuel  P.  Orth 

41.  THE  MASTERS  OF  CAPITAL,  by  John  Moody 

42.  THE  NEW  SOUTH,  by  Holland  Thompson 


VII.  The  Era  of  World  Power 

The  seventh  sequence  carries  on  the  story  of  government  and  diplomacy 
and  political  expansion  from  the  Reconstruction  (1876)  to  the  present  day, 
in  six  volumes: 

43.  THE  BOSS  AND  THE  MACHINE,  by  Samuel  P.  Or/A 

44.  THE  CLEVELAND  ERA,  by  Henry  Jones  Ford 

45.  THE  AGRARIAN  CRUSADE,  by  Solon  J.  Buck 

46.  THE  PATH  OF  EMPIRE,  by  Carl  Russell  Fish 

47.  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIMES,  by  Harold  Howland 

48.  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  THE  WORLD  WAR,  by  Charles  Seymour 

VIII.   Our  Neighbors 

Now  to  round  out  the  story  of  the  continent,  the  Hispanic  peoples  on 
the  south  and  the  Canadians  on  the  north  are  taken  up  where  they  were 
dropped  further  back  in  the  Series,  and  these  peoples  are  followed  down 
to  the  present  day: 

49.  THE  CANADIAN  DOMINION,  by  Oscar  D.  Skelton 

50.  THE  HISPANIC  NATIONS  OF  THE  NEW  WORLD,  by  William  R.  Shepherd 

The  Chronicles  of  America  is  thus  a  great  synthesis,  giving  a  new  projec 
tion  and  a  new  interpretation  of  American  History.  These  narratives  are 
works  of  real  scholarship,  for  every  one  is  written  after  an  exhaustive 
examination  of  the  sources.  Many  of  them  contain  new  facts;  some  of  them 
— such  as  those  by  Rowland,  Seymour,  and  Hough — are  founded  on  inti 
mate  personal  knowledge.  But  the  originality  of  the  Series  lies,  not  chiefly 
in  new  facts,  but  rather  in  new  ideas  and  new  combinations  of  old  facts. 

The  General  Editor  of  the  Series  is  Dr.  Allen  Johnson,  Chairman  of  the 
Department  of  History  of  Yale  University,  and  the  entire  work  has  been 
planned,  prepared,  and  published  under  the  control  of  the  Council* 
Committee  on  Publications  of  Yale  University. 

YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

143  ELM  STREET,  NEW  HAVEN 
522  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 

Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
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safll 


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3Jun'6llE 


JUN    6  196 
I3May'63BB 


JUL  1 8 1963 


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9    196520 


JUN  9     1965      fcEC'DLD 
NO/ 2  9 -65 -8  AM 


LD  21-100m-7,'52(A2528sl6)476 


Y.B  63980 


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THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


